


Avengers Academy: The Man In The Purple Suit

by TheRealRaiden



Category: Avengers Academy (Video Game), Jessica Jones (TV), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Completed, Gen, Origin Story, Three Act Structure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 41,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8846254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRealRaiden/pseuds/TheRealRaiden
Summary: For the first time since she was thirteen years old, Jessica Jones feels safe. Having joined Avengers Academy months ago alongside her best friend Patsy Walker and her boyfriend Luke Cage, the teenage girl has finally found a place she can truly call home. But a chance encounter during an assignment reveals a terrifying truth - the man who ruined her life, a man she once called a brother, is back in town. And he'll stop at nothing to take her back, even if it means burning Avengers Academy to the ground in the process.





	1. Eight Years Ago

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally posted as just one huge chapter, and I admit that that wasn't really the way to go. So I reuploaded it split into multiple chapters for your reading pleasure. Please enjoy, and if you like it (or even if you don't) I'd really love it if you leave a comment below!

  
Jessica Jones shuffled her feet nervously as she stood in front of the door leading into the Walker residence. She knew that she had to ring the doorbell, and yet it was as if something deep down inside of her was telling her to run, to just abandon her best friend to her miserable fate and never look back. Of course, the ten year old girl knew exactly why she felt this way - because the last three times Patsy had called her and uttered the words “Come quickly, and please don’t tell mom”, things always went south for both of them. Mrs. Walker was a beast who already thought that the tomboyish Jessica was a bad influence on her perfect, made-for-TV daughter and certainly wasn’t afraid to say it out loud, and the fact that the two girls kept getting themselves into mess after mess didn’t help her opinion. There was that time a year ago when Patsy had found a stray puppy wandering alone and had decided to take it in against her mother’s will, or that time when she decided to skip an important audition because she didn’t like the role she’d been given, and of course who could forget that one time when Mrs. Walker had been out of town for a few days and Patsy almost burned down the house trying to make caramel apples. Jessica always got herself involved in those incident with a plea of “Come quickly, and please don’t tell mom”, and then was subsequently blamed as their sole perpetrator by Patsy’s mother despite both girls’ claims that they were equally involved. Honestly, at some point Jessica began suspecting that Mrs. Walker knew perfectly well who was behind everything, but still found it more convenient to use her daughter’s best friend as the scapegoat in order to keep Patsy’s celebrity status unsullied. Nobody would’ve benefitted from the yellow press catching wind of the fact that Patsy Walker, star of numerous sitcoms, movies, ads and even a comic book series, almost burned her house down once.

  
Still, even if she kind of understood the reasoning behind it, Jessica certainly wasn’t a fan of being blamed whenever things went south. And in her experience, the phrase “Come quickly, and please don’t tell mom” pretty much guaranteed that things would go all the way down to Antarctica. Still, Patsy was her best friend. The two of them had been together since they were practically babies, and Jessica simply couldn’t find it in her to abandon the girl she’d grown to know and love like a sister. With a resigned sigh, she reached out and pressed the doorbell. It took a while for her to hear the sound of keys fiddling around in the lock, as if the person on the other side was trying to find the right key by trying them all one by one. Finally, after a few minutes, the door opened revealing a short-haired brunette dressed in a gown and holding a wide glass with a brown liquid and two ice cubes in it. Jessica wasn’t even surprised at this point. Patsy’s mom always had her ways of dealing with her problems.

  
“Oh, it’s you,” she scoffed, not even making an effort to hide her disdain for the tomboyish girl on her doorstep.  
“Hey, Mrs. Walker,” Jessica smiled politely. “Is Patsy around?”  
“Patsy’s rehearsing, she can’t play today,” the woman stated as the door began to close. Acting on instinct, Jessica quickly slammed her palm against it.  
“Please, I just need to talk to her for five minutes. Five minutes, then I’ll be out of here, I promise,” she stated.  
Mrs. Walker sighed and rolled her eyes, probably in the hopes that her body language would make it rather clear that Jessica wasn’t wanted in the house. When she realized that this wasn’t going to work, the woman moved away, holding the door open.  
“Five minutes,” she confirmed.  
Jessica nodded, stepping in through the doorstep and promptly slipping her sneakers off. The Walker residence always prided itself on being clean and European or whatever, which meant that shoes from outside weren’t permitted in. Usually, Mrs. Walker gave Jessica slippers to wear, but that day she seemed a lot more invested in her drink than in her guest’s comfort.

  
Clad in her socks, Jessica promptly ran upstairs and headed towards the last door on the right, at the end of the hall - the one adorned with big, superfluous letters spelling “PATSY” in a colorful, playful font that had very obviously been chosen by Mrs. Walker. The tomboy twisted the knob, finding out, much to her surprise, that the door was locked.  
“Patsy?” She asked.  
“Jess?” A small voice chirped from inside. Jessica could’ve sworn that Patsy said something else, albeit more quietly and incomprehensibly, before patting over to the door and unlocking it. A moment later, the door opened ever so slightly and a blue eye framed by red locks peeked out.  
“Are you alone? Is my mom there?”  
“It’s just me,” Jessica sighed. “Can I come in already?”  
“Okay, okay… But quickly!” Patsy responded, opening the door just enough so that her best friend could slip in.

  
Patsy’s room looked the same as ever - lots of style, very little substance. Mrs. Walker had paid her internal decorator quite a lot to make the room look good in home and lifestyle magazines, and Patsy absolutely hated it. She hated the pink wallpapers, the king-sized bed surrounded by frilly curtains that always made her feel so lonely at night and her gigantic wardrobe which looked more like a closet than anything else and was stuffed with clothes Patsy wasn’t even allowed to wear without a proper occasion (and, of course, what constituted as a proper occasion was determined by her mom alone), but most of all, she hated the fact that she never got any say in what her own room looked like. Any but the smallest personal touches were immediately revoked by Mrs. Walker, and Patsy was banned from bringing any items that her mother hadn’t bought her herself… Which was why the fact that the door of the wardrobe was being so obviously held up by something stuck out like a sore thumb.  
“Uh, Patsy… What’s in there?” Jessica asked, pointing at it.  
“Okay, don’t freak out. Seriously, don’t freak out,” the redhead spoke, more to herself than to Jess, as she re-locked the door to her room. “I really didn’t know what else to do!”  
“Patsy, what did you do?” Jess sighed, rubbing her forehead. She was going to get the blame for this too, wasn’t she?  
“So I was going for my morning run, right? My mom, she got me this new fitness instructor who told me I had to run one mile a day every morning,” she explained. Jessica wasn’t surprised - Mrs. Walker always came up with new ways to torment her daughter.

  
“I usually just run all the way down Higgins Drive, which is a little under half a mile, and then I run back. But this time I wasn’t feeling tired, and I remembered that my fitness instructor told me that running gets a little easier as I do it over and over again, and once I stop feeling tired I should keep pushing myself, so I continued running past the intersection and all the way down into the city, and-- OH MY GOD DON’T OPEN THAT!”  
But it was too late. By the time Patsy jumped up from her bed and rushed to stop her, Jessica was already pulling the door of the wardrobe open. She expected to see a stray dog or a cat, or perhaps some kind of fancy street sign that Patsy just felt like having. What she certainly didn’t expect to find was a little boy, about seven or eight years old, dressed in nothing but a tattered, torn hospital gown. The boy had curled up in the corner of the wardrobe, peeking out from behind the row of coats hanging from the rack, his eyes like those of a deer in headlights. For a while, Jessica and the boy could do nothing but stare at each other in silence, both wondering whether they were supposed to scream or run away.  
“Well, um… I guess the point of the story is that I found him on the pavement, like this,” Patsy chimed in, her voice sounding quiet and guilty. “He asked me to take him home, and I… I couldn’t leave him like that. I just couldn’t.”

  
Jessica sighed loudly, closing her eyes. Now they’d done it. Taking in a stray animal was one thing, but this was… Kidnapping! Patsy Walker, one of the most famous young actresses currently active, had kidnapped a little boy. There was no explaining that to the police, or the media, or worst of all, Mrs. Walker. They were definitely going to jail.  
“Can I just ask the obvious question… Why did you ever think it was a good idea to bring a boy you found on the streets here? How did you even sneak him past your mom? And what… What are we even going to do with him now? We gotta…” Jessica stopped, taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm her nerves. “I don’t know, call the police or social services or something!”  
“No!” The boy screamed, jumping up on his feet. “Don’t call anyone. Please!”  
His face and head, previously engulfed in the darkness of the wardrobe, were now completely illuminated by the light in Patsy’s room. Jessica’s mouth gaped. All of his hair had been shaved, almost down to the skin, and countless scars adorned his scalp, in various states of healing. At first, the girl assumed that someone had broken a bottle over his head or something like that, but the more she looked at his head, the more she realized that each wound had been inflicted deliberately, with surgical precision. She could even spot signs of sutures on a few of them.

  
“Who… did this to you?” Jessica asked, reaching out her hand to touch one of the scars. The little boy instinctively backed away, stepping into the wardrobe once again.  
“There’s more,” Patsy chimed in. “On the back of his neck, and on his spine. I’m not sure, but, um… You remember that crazy guy on TV a few months ago? The one that said that the government took children away for experiments? What if…”  
“Patsy, that’s insane! He’s probably just sick or something!”  
“I’m not sick…” The boy muttered quietly, his arms pressed against his chest. He was cold in the gown, but at the moment, neither of the young girls were thinking clearly enough to give him something to wear. Jessica sighed, her forehead pounding. They couldn’t call anyone, that much was for sure. But what else were they supposed to do?  
“I can’t call my parents. I can’t get them involved in this... And we sure as hell can’t involve your mom.”  
“So, what now?” the redhead asked calmly, curious if her best friend had a plan..  
“I don’t know! I just don’t know, okay? I mean, shit, Patsy, what kind of a situation are we in?! This isn’t some 80s movie where we hide him somewhere and go on magical adventures to learn the meaning of friendship. How’s he going to go to school, or, like, live any kind of normal life? And if the people after him threaten my family, it’s going to be my fault, do you get that? I--”

  
Jessica’s yelling was interrupted by a warm touch on her hand. She turned around, noticing the little boy carefully touching her fingers with his own, reluctant to grip her more firmly. His eyes were swollen and red, just one push away from filling up with tears.  
“Please don’t make me go back. I can’t go back,” he spoke, with some difficulty. It didn’t seem like he was a particularly fluent speaker, despite his age. “I’m scared.”  
Jessica sighed. With all of this arguing about what was the right thing to do, they’d never once considered the boy’s feelings. Of course he was scared - who knew what they’d done to him in his previous home? Despite all their arguments, both girls knew that there was really only one right thing to do in this situation.  
“Okay, fine… We can talk to my parents. Maybe they’ll be able to come up with something,” she spoke, turning towards him. “What do you think? Can we convince them not to turn you in?”  
The boy nodded.  
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Patsy grinned, wrapping her arms around her best friend for a big hug. “I knew you were just a big softie deep down inside, Jess!”  
“Yeah, I’m not too sure about that…” She sighed. “For some reason I can’t shake the notion that this is going to come back to bite me in the ass, like always.”

## 


	2. Present Day

Jessica Jones absolutely hated stakeouts. They were, without a doubt, the absolute worst part of being a PI, despite how glorified they looked on TV. In the movies, the unlikely partners always had a heart-to-heart during a stakeout that managed to resolve their differences and get them on the same page just in time for them to catch the criminal doing something naughty. In real life, though, staking someone out was a lonely affair, and one that was often fruitless, in one way or another. Before she ended up in the Hell’s Kitchen Institute for Troubled Youth, most of Jessica’s cases revolved around a jealous spouse hiring her to follow their significant other for the day, in the hopes of catching them in some sort of misdemeanor. Nobody suspected an insignificant teenage girl with a camera in front of a hotel of being anything more than a mindless tourist, which allowed her to, more often than not, get the footage she needed without being disturbed, even if it took quite a few hours every single time. The problem came when said footage was presented to the client, whose most common reaction was to completely denounce the evidence with excuses like “The picture isn’t clear enough, this could’ve been anybody” or “There’s no context here” and then refuse to pay. And when you’re not even eighteen yet and you live in your office, it’s very important that clients pay. If they didn’t, that meant she couldn’t pay her rent, and unpaid rent meant being either homeless and jobless or joining the Institute for Troubled Youth. Honestly, Jessica didn’t know which was worse, but ultimately went with the latter simply because having a roof over your head was better than having none, even if said roof was leaky and the windows had bars on them.

  
It wasn’t like the Institute was all bad, though. It was only something like 95% bad. The other 5%, naturally, had a name - Luke Cage. He was very much in the same boat as her, running from a past he shared nothing about and left homeless after his last job had gone south. Not to mention, both of them had… abilities. Needless to say, they hit it off pretty much immediately. “I love you almost as much as I love Danny,” Luke would often say to her, which Jessica always took as a compliment considering the fact that the bromance between Luke and his best friend Danny Rand was probably the purest form of affection she’d ever seen in her life. It was only thanks to him, and thanks to Patsy’s frequent visits, that Jessica was able to resist the temptation of tearing that entire God-forsaken institution down brick by brick. It was a prison in all but name, complete with the joys of uniforms, restricted access to the outside world, communal showers and strict curfew. Jessica knew she was legally required to remain there until she was 21, after which she was going to get another shot at that PI thing. For better or worse, though, fate had other plans, and the Kingpin - one of the Institute’s most infamous students - organized a hostile take-over, removing the administration with the help of Frank Castle (another student of the Institute notorious for his fighting prowess) and literally imprisoning the students who refused to join him before attempting to do the same thing to Avengers Academy. His plan involved placing the Academy’s principal, Nick Fury, on trial and, after a guilty verdict, having him removed and replaced by the Kingpin himself. Unfortunately for him, Fury had both the defense - aspiring law student Matt Murdock - and the prosecution - Loki Laufeyson, God of Mischief and self-proclaimed “prosecutor” - in his pocket. Frank Castle himself also turned out to have been working for Fury for quite some time, backstabbing the Kingpin at the most opportune moment. Fury’s machinations paid off, with the Kingpin’s illegal schemes being exposed at the trial and earning him a transparent cell on the Avengers Academy grounds.

  
After that, the Institute never managed to recover. The students who supported Kingpin fled, while Jessica, Luke and Danny received invitations to join Avengers Academy. Matt Murdock, Frank Castle and Patsy - who was caught right in the middle of the entire incident, but had managed to prove her worth - were also invited. The Academy offered Jessica free accommodation, free access to its facilities, free healthcare and even a pretty fat scholarship, if she managed to keep her grades above a certain threshold. And while the thought of jumping from one prison into another wasn’t exactly the most appealing one, Jessica just couldn’t refuse it, especially since after the fall of the Institute she was back to square one, with no money, no home and no connections to people who weren’t already studying there. It seemed like a no-brainer. What sweetened the deal was the promise from Nick Fury himself that Jessica would be able to continue developing her talents as a PI by going on assignments for him. That actually intrigued her. Everyone knew that Fury was a man with secrets - Black Widow practically refused to shut up about it. So what kind of investigative work could someone holding some of the world’s biggest secrets possibly require? Perhaps looking into a shady organization? Connecting the dots on a cold case? Nope. It was more goddamn stakeouts. Because some things just never changed.

  
Even in her warm winter coat Jessica felt the biting cold on her skin. It had been a few months since the Institute incident, and winter had descended upon Hell’s Kitchen. There was nothing quite like the snowfall in New York, which could only be rivaled by the northern part of Canada in terms of density and temperature. Jessica hated it. Stakeouts were bad enough already, but they became an entirely new circle of hell when she had to freeze her bum outside for hours waiting for her target to show up, and the fact that the snowfall had a bad habit of ruining her pictures was just a nice bonus. Many PIs tended to use digital cameras for their shots, which could take thousands of pictures, depending on their storage size. Jessica, on the other hand, tended to find them unreliable. If her target confronted her and wanted to see her pictures, that could’ve been done rather easily on a digital camera, but with a traditional film one she could always pretend to be a dumb tourist who was taking pictures of the sights and wasn’t remotely interested in him. There was no way to prove otherwise without spending a considerable amount of time in a dark room developing the film. The downside was that she only had so many shots before she ran out, and thus every picture had to count. Which was rather difficult, considering the snowfall. The whole situation was made even worse by the fact that her target location - a small restaurant known as Doc’s Diner located smack-dab in the center of Hell’s Kitchen - didn’t lend itself to inconspicuous staking out at all. Its large, glass windows revealed everything in its vicinity, even with the snowfall intact, so the standard paparazzi approach of sneaking up to the windows and taking clear shots that way was out of the question. Instead, Jessica found herself having to sit on a bench all the way across the street, relying mostly on her camera’s optical zoom to give her a clear view of what was going on inside the building. It wasn’t going to be easy, but with a little bit of luck she could get at least a few decent shots of her intended target.

  
For the moment, the diner was mostly empty, which wasn’t a surprise considering the snowfall - not a lot of people wanted to go out for a cup of coffee in weather like this. Aside from the waitress, a middle-aged woman who had her back turned as she brewed another pot, there were only two people currently residing in the diner, on different tables. One of them was a handsome, blond man who sipped on his coffee quietly, a book in his spare hand. The other - a man in a green uniform wearing red sunglasses indoors. Jessica sighed. HYDRA students, or more appropriately, former HYDRA students, were never exactly known for being inconspicuous. One would expect that after their school fell, with both of their leaders joining Avengers Academy (one as a faculty member and the other in a transparent prison cell), the remaining HYDRA students would’ve quit their antics and found a new hobby, but it seemed like that assumption was far from the truth. Quite the opposite - Fury suspected that they had been in contact with some of the Academy’s students, trying to convince them to betray their school and release the Red Skull from his prison so that HYDRA may rise again. It was that assumption which had sent Jessica on her stakeout, in the cold, while Luke, Patsy and Danny were probably busy marathoning 90s sitcoms and sipping hot cocoa. Needless to say, she wasn’t happy about her current situation, but hey - her scholarship was kind of like her payment. It wasn’t like she could say no.

  
Her train of thought was interrupted by the sight of the diner’s door swinging open. Jessica narrowed her eyes and brought her camera up, just in case. Inside walked a tall, red-haired woman clad in a rather warm-looking fur coat. Her eyes, much like the HYDRA student’s, were concealed by dark shades which, in reality, did absolutely nothing to protect her identity. Jessica may not have studied at Avengers Academy for too long, but there was absolutely no way she couldn’t recognize Black Widow, even with that ridiculous (if incredibly comfy and warm) getup. The former spy spoke of the Academy’s secrets with fervor not unlike that of a conspiracy theorist. “Fury’s hiding something” was basically her catchphrase, and she’d been caught numerous times trying to pull off her own schemes in order to uncover whatever that “something” was, with limited success. It was really no wonder that HYDRA would reach out to her first when it came to defecting. Jessica pressed the earpiece against her ear as she watched Widow slowly make her way to the HYDRA student’s table, sitting down opposite him and leaning back.

  
“Thank God you’re finally here!” He finally exclaimed. “I was starting to think you’d never show up! I mean, don’t get me wrong, I trust you and all, but I’ve been kind of waiting here for a little bit, and by ‘a little bit’ I mean two hours.”  
“I had to solve a mystery,” Widow explained, crossing her arms. “And besides, good things are worth waiting for.”  
“Yeah, tell me about it! Man, the other guys are gonna be so pleased with me if I actually manage to get Black Widow on our side! This is--”  
“Whoa, slow down there, Klaus…”  
“It’s, uh, Bob, actually,” he spoke quietly.  
“I never said I would join. We’re just here to discuss options.”  
“Come on, are you seriously telling me that you want to stay there? You guys have been attacked by aliens, demons, ninjas, symbiotes and two rival schools, to name a few, and I don’t know about you, but I do NOT trust all of those robots you’ve got on campus!”  
“I agree, Avengers Academy is a sinking ship, for many reasons,” Widow assured him. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean I will join the remnants of your school. AIM have also extended an offer, and I could always go solo. Those options sound better than a has-been school with no faculty and almost no students.”  
“No, wait!” Bob almost shouted, reaching out to place his hand on Widow’s arm before reconsidering. “I know that HYDRA doesn’t look too good right now, but… Don’t let anyone know this, but it’s just for appearances’ sake!”

  
Jessica narrowed her eyes, raising her camera to take a few shots of the people at the table. They were getting to the good stuff, and having evidence of it wasn’t exactly a bad idea.  
“The thing is, we’ve actually got quite a few people all set up and ready to go. Dozens of us.”  
“You’re joking,” Black Widow scoffed.  
“No, it’s true! After the failed Academy take-over, a few of us did quit, but most are hiding out. And, without spoiling too much, let’s just say we’re pretty close. All we need now is for someone inside the Academy to free the Red Skull so that he may rejoin us, and we will once again be a formidable force!”  
‘You guys were never formidable. Not even close.”  
‘Yeah, true…” Bob sighed. “But hey, once we get our leader back, we’ll have an army and a better plan. Not to mention, the Academy thinks we’re done for, so we’ll have the element of surprise!”  
“Back up a little bit. What’s that plan you were speaking of?”  
“I’m not entirely sure if I’m allowed to say…”

  
The PI took a few more shots of the table as she heard the door slide open once again. She didn’t actually expect anyone else to be coming in, so she wrote it off as a customer trying to find shelter from the ever increasing snowfall outside. It was times like these in which Jessica was truly grateful for her enhanced strength and endurance - had she lacked them, the snow thoroughly covering her hair and body was probably going to give her pneumonia or something. The girl shook off the cold, focusing her eyes on the optical lens of the camera while keeping track of the conversation in her earpiece.  
“I’m starting to doubt that you actually have a plan. Or are you waiting for the Skull to come up with one?” Natasha teased.  
“No, no, it’s just… Ugh, fine…” Bob conceded. “You know how something bad is happening pretty much every month at the Academy, right? Well, we’re going to wait for something particularly bad to happen and strike then. No one will be expecting us!”  
“Well, I do have to admit, that’s a pretty solid plan…”  
“I know! The Academy can handle one threat, sure, but two? They’d be overwhelmed, especially with a few moles on the inside!”  
“A few? So you reached out to others beside me?”  
“Well, I don’t mean to brag, but……………………………………………………………”  
“....................................................?”  
“....................................................................”

  
The moment she saw him, Jessica’s ears stopped working. Time slowed down to a painful, excruciating crawl, and her eyes could do absolutely nothing but look at his face, magnified through the lens of the camera. Her hands gripped the device tightly, as if it was a lifebelt, and her stomach tightened as if gripped by the world’s strongest vice. Jessica could feel her heart beating in her chest so strongly that it threatened to burst out, and yet no blood seemed to flow through her body whatsoever. Her hands and feet felt cold, and her mind went blank. For the longest time, within Jessica Jones’ quick and brilliant mind resided but a single thought:

  
“How is he here?”

  
The girl began gasping for air, each breath she took feeling excruciatingly painful and failing to fill her lungs. She felt her mind slipping out from the lack of oxygen as her body suddenly became completely useless, her hands dropping her camera down in the snow. At that moment, Jessica honestly felt like she was dying. Both her mind and her body were suffocating, and yet she found herself completely unable to do anything to stop it. She wanted to just let herself go, to pass out and wake up somewhere else, somewhere she could be safe and not feel whatever the hell she was going through, but her mind refused to slip into unconsciousness. All she could do was sit there, covered in snow, and gasp like someone was choking her while fighting back tears.

  
“Jessica! Jessica, talk to me! What happened?” She could hear Natasha’s voice in her earpiece.  
“I can’t… I can’t breathe…” The girl gasped out.  
“Don’t move! I’ll be right there!” Widow spoke, as if there was somehow a way Jessica could possibly move from her bench. She could barely breathe, her body refused to respond to her and she was on the verge of unconsciousness - she couldn’t move even if she wanted to. Grasping her chest, the girl glanced up, noticing a few figures running towards her. At the front was Natasha, who had discarded her glasses and hat somewhere, possibly back at the restaurant. Behind her was the blond man from the diner, who firmly held Bob by the arm. Captain America had been brought in undercover just in case something went wrong with mission… And it appeared that it had.  
“What’s wrong? Was she poisoned?” Cap asked, his eyes betraying his concern even if his stoic tone of voice did not.  
“It looks like a panic attack. She’ll be fine, she just needs some space,” Widow spoke, sitting down on the bench by Jessica’s side. Steve nodded, taking a step back and dragging his captive alongside him.

  
The girl felt Natasha’s warm hand wrap against her own tightly, the redhead reassuring her of her presence.  
“Jessica, listen to me carefully. I need you to count with me out loud, from ten to one, okay? Come on, ten…”  
She opened her mouth, wanting to obey her friend’s instructions, but all she could muster was a pained gasp.  
“Jessica!” Widow raised her voice ever so slightly, just enough to make sure she could be heard clearly. “Ten…”  
“T-ten…” Jessica repeated, her lips quivering. She continued to count slowly, trying to focus on matching Natasha’s pace. By the time they reached to one, she found out, much to her relief, that the horrible, suffocating feeling inside her was but a faint memory. The experience had shaken her, as evident by her clearly trembling hands, but at least the worst had passed. Realizing this, Widow immediately embraced her friend in a gentle hug,  
“I’m fine… I’m fine now,” Jessica spoke, but she returned the hug. Ordinarily, she wasn’t exactly a very physical person, unlike Patsy who was the biggest hugger she knew. She was rarely even intimate with Luke, let alone with the other Academy students. But this time was an exception. This time, any and all comfort was appreciated. Because she knew. She knew that if Kilgrave was back, none of the people she cared about were safe.

  
Still holding Natasha tightly, Jessica glanced up at the big, glass window of the diner. Aside from the waitress, the place was empty. She narrowed her eyes, staring straight at the place where she had spotted the man who ruined her life. He wasn’t going to catch her by surprise next time.

## 


	3. Avengers Academy

Upon their return to the campus grounds, Jessica, Natasha and Steve were given about an hour to rest and compose themselves before reporting their mission. Jessica went straight to her dorm room and immediately took a long, warm shower, washing off the melted snow from her hair and warming up her frozen body. She took over 40 minutes in the shower, just standing there and thinking. At the diner, she was sure that she saw him, but… Could it be a trick of her mind? He had spent eighteen months manipulating her every action, like she was a puppet on strings, and even before that he had been subtly influencing her for years. Was it possible that a small part of him had been left behind in her subconscious? She quickly shook the thought away. As a PI, Jessica had to learn to trust herself, and she was sure that she saw him there, in the diner. It was a one in a million chance encounter, most likely, but it had revealed the fact that he was back in New York. But why? It didn’t make any sense at all. He had let her go. The events leading up to it were a blank spot, but she clearly remembered his last orders.

  
“Go. Turn around and walk away. And whatever you do, don’t ever obey me again.”

  
It had taken Jessica weeks to fully shake off Kilgrave’s influence, and even then the questions lingered. Why had he released her? Why had he left her life so abruptly? Still, she wasn’t one to argue with a good thing, and in all honesty, aside from meeting Luke, being free was probably the best thing that had happened to her in her post-powers life. Honestly, Jessica assumed that she was never going to see Kilgrave again after this, but his sudden appearance suggested otherwise. He was back, and whether or not he was looking for her was irrelevant - his presence alone spelled trouble. He could very well turn out to be a problem that had to be dealt with, perhaps in a permanent manner. Jessica despised the thought, but what else could she do about it? If Kilgrave wandered into Avengers Academy and took control of everyone, he would have an army of some of the strongest metahumans in the world. He would be unstoppable. If he was truly back, Jessica had to track him down and prevent that from happening, whatever the cost.

  
After her shower, the girl hurriedly changed her clothes before walking outside, wanting to avoid running into Patsy or Luke for the time being. At the moment, she had more important things to worry about than to answer the obvious barrage of questions like “What’s wrong” and “Are you okay”. In a few minutes, she was going to be called in by Principal Fury in order to give a mission report, and that was going to be her one chance to convince him to help her in tracking Kilgrave down. But before she could meet him, Jessica wanted to speak to somebody else on campus. She walked past the quad and down one of the many tile roads connecting the various buildings in the Academy together. Her target was placed right in the corner of the campus, sandwiched between the wall and Van Dyne’s - mostly because there was no other place to put it at the time. It was a single cube with transparent walls made out of reinforced glass, of the type that was strong enough to take a bullet without even scratching, with its bottom wall made of a Vibranium-titanium alloy, for maximum security. Within the cell resided a young man dressed in jeans, a leather jacket and a T-shirt embellished with the HYDRA logo, his bald head bearing a distinctive red hue.

  
The Red Skull was sitting in the back of his cell, staring idly in the distance. During the first few months of his imprisonment, he paced around, screamed and fired his gun at the walls trying to break them. Now, he merely sat back, resigned to his fate within the confines of a prison cell barely larger than he was. Jessica could understand that feeling. She had gone through something like that in the Institute, but at least she had Luke to keep her sane. The Skull had no one. The Academy students generally treated his cell as nothing but decoration, a trophy of their victory against the HYDRA invasion. It was inhumane, downright cruel, and yet somehow no one at the Academy questioned it. Jessica had no intention of being just another face in the crowd, at least as far as the Red Skull was concerned. Over the few short months since joining Avengers Academy, she had had several conversations with him, considering him to be the most civil of all prisoners currently held on campus… Which wasn’t exactly saying something considering the fact that the other prisoners were an alien, a symbiote, two demons, an evil sorcerer and the Kingpin, but still. Jessica had a neutral party to confide in who she knew couldn’t possibly spill her secrets even if he wanted to, and the Skull had at least some entertainment in his monotonous life. It was a win-win situation.

  
“Something happened,” he spoke to her as soon as she took a seat in front of his cell. “I can see it in your eyes.”  
“I have a question for you,” Jessica interrupted him, having no intention of getting into a heart to heart about her feelings. Not at that moment, and especially not with him.  
“A question?” He looked at her.  
“Why did you do it? Why attack Avengers Academy? Why overtake your own faculty? Hell, you brainwashed Captain America’s best friend and tried to turn him against him. At some point you must have realized that what you were doing was wrong, so why go through with it?”  
The Red Skull chuckled.  
“Maybe I’m just evil?”  
“I don’t buy that,” she shook her head. “I don’t believe in evil.”  
“So, what do you believe in?”  
“Will you answer my question?”  
The Skull kept quiet. Jessica sighed.

  
“I believe in motivations,” she spoke. “I believe that when you want something, your first instinct is to go out and get it, to work hard towards obtaining it. Whatever it is.”  
“Well, I think you just answered your own question.”  
“But I also believe in morality. I believe that there are some things you can’t obtain, because doing so would harm others or would be selfish.”  
“So you’re saying I have no morals?” He asked.  
“I don’t know. I guess that’s what I’m trying to understand. At this point, there hardly seems a thing you wouldn’t do if it benefits you, no matter how wrong it is.”  
The Red Skull chuckled.  
“I do have morals. I was raised by parents who were very insistent on that. But more likely than not, my morals don’t align with yours.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Imagine a farmer working hard on his crops all year, earning his food with the sweat on his brow. But then, just as it’s time to gather the crops, he realizes that most of them have been destroyed by mice. Determined not to let that happen again, he decides to sprinkle rat poison around his crops and place traps, determined to kill every single mouse. Now, who is right here? The mice or the farmer?”

  
Jessica crossed her arms.  
“Couldn’t the mice find another place to eat from?”  
“They could, of course, but that presents its own dangers. If they go to the forest, for example, they’ll be hunted by birds, foxes and snakes. Neither the farmer, the mice nor the forest animals are evil. They just do what they need to survive, and in the process get into conflict with each other fighting for survival.”  
“What are you saying?”  
“I’m saying that I did what I thought was best for my school. We were in massive debt, our faculty was incompetent and our student body was growing restless. If we didn’t try something we would have crumbled. It just so happened that our struggle for survival was at odds with yours.”  
“So that’s all it was? Survival?”  
“That’s all it was,” the Skull confirmed. “We tried. We failed. We crumbled. But if we hadn’t tried we would’ve crumbled anyway. When you see an opportunity, you must take it.”  
“And what if it’s not about survival? Is it possible that, sometimes, people can just… Do evil things?”  
The Red Skull kept quiet for a few moments.  
“No, I don’t believe that. It doesn’t make sense to me. I think that, in one way or another… Whenever someone gets in conflict with you, a serious conflict, it’s always about your survival or theirs. People are willing to compromise their morals if survival was on the line. That’s the absolute truth.”

  
The girl averted her eyes. She wasn’t entirely convinced that this was the absolute truth, but the Red Skull’s words did at least make it quite clear that it was *a* truth. It was what he believed in, at least, even if it was hard to imagine that every single person who had ever come in conflict with the Academy or its members had done so for the sake of survival. It was definitely impossible to imagine Kilgrave in that light, at the very least. He was a man who had manipulated her against her will into hurting countless people, all for revenge. Revenge against her, against those who had harmed him as a child, against the world as a whole. Sometimes, Jessica even wondered if the man she had once shared a home with took some kind of twisted pleasure from seeing those around him suffer. It wasn’t usually a topic that she liked to dwell upon, but Kilgrave tended to surface to the forefront of her mind every once in a while, as much as she hated that.

  
The sound of someone calling her name tore Jessica from her thoughts. She turned around, noticing a large, dark-skinned man practically sprinting towards her, from the other side of the campus. The girl let out a quiet sigh before giving the Skull the classic ‘Boyfriend, what can you do?’ look, to which he responded with a chuckle. Upon rising on her feet, Jessica promptly found herself in Luke’s embrace, which wasn’t something she enjoyed all that much, but figured it was better to let him feel emotionally useful at least for a little bit before pushing him away. It wasn’t like she despised Luke’s affection, it was just that she was never one for hugs and cuddles as a form of comfort. When she was feeling down, her ways of dealing with it usually didn’t involve other people.  
“Steve told me what happened,” he spoke, breaking off the hug, but still keeping his hands on her arms. “Are you okay?”  
“I am now,” she nodded. Whatever Jessica truly felt, this wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have in the middle of campus, least of all in front of the Red Skull’s cell.  
“Jess…” Luke sighed. He knew his girlfriend well enough to know when she was holding back. “You know that if there’s some kind of… Problem, we can work through it, right? Together.”  
“I know,” she nodded. “And trust me, if this was a problem I knew you could fix you’d be the first person I’d tell. But it’s me. It’s stuff I need to work out on my own.”  
“Okay, I won’t bring it up,” he said. “But if you ever want to talk, I’m here. I’m always here.”  
“Got it,” she nodded. If only this was a problem that could be solved by speaking… In any case, Jessica knew that Luke couldn’t really help her at that moment. If she was to find Kilgrave, she had to do it alone. Other people were just a liability when chasing someone who could control minds with a word.

  
The girl turned around, sensing someone behind her. The outline of red hair and a black jacket made its way into her peripheral vision, as if out of nowhere. She sighed. You’d never know Widow was there unless she wanted you to.  
“Fury wants to see you,” she spoke, her tone betraying her regret over being the bringer of bad news. Jessica turned around and nodded. That was going to be fun.  
“Any advice?” She asked.  
“He screams a lot, but he’s not nearly as scary as he tries to make himself out to be. He also doesn’t mean most of the things he says. Keep your cool, try to stay on top of him and you’ll be fine,” Natasha explained. That didn’t sound so hard to do, but then again, the redhead had been a trained spy before joining the Academy. Getting under the skin of people like Fury was basically in her job description. Still, it wasn’t like Jessica had much of a choice. All she could do was try to follow her friend’s advice the best she could. Still, with all that said, Fury was bound to understand eventually, right? After all, what was the worst thing that could happen?

## 


	4. Principal Fury's Office

“Do you have  any idea how long it took to plan everything out? To bait a HYDRA student out of hiding and suggest the idea that they could recruit some of our students?” Fury yelled, slamming his hand on his desk. Up until this point, Jessica had only seen the one-eyed leader of the Academy calm, collected and in control of the situation at hand. Seeing him go off the rails like that at her, especially after everything that had already happened that day, was more than a little unnerving. And the worst part was that Jessica had no idea if he was genuinely angry or if he was just trying to scare her into submission. She was typically pretty good at reading people, but if Fury was faking it, he was doing a damn fine job.

  
“What happened?” He asked, his palms pressed against his desk as he towered over the seated Jessica.  
“You already know what happened,” she crossed her arms. “I had a panic attack. Natasha and Steve had to abort in order to help me.”  
“We don’t get panic attacks, Ms. Jones. That’s not a luxury that we can afford in our field. What if you get a panic attack in the middle of a fight?”  
Jessica scoffed, barely resisting the urge to apologize for being so emotionally messed up. She bit her tongue, figuring that maybe being sassy wasn’t going to score her any points with Fury. The tall man sighed loudly, sitting back in his seat. He kept quiet for a moment.  
“What happened?” He repeated.  
“I was caught off-guard. It won’t happen again.”  
“That wasn’t my question.”

  
She looked away. There was little point in dodging the issue, and lying was even more useless - he was going to see through that immediately. It didn’t seem like there was any way out of this. And besides, he had to know the truth if he was going to help her track down Kilgrave, right?  
“I thought I saw someone. Someone from my past,” she responded.  
“Who?”  
Jessica kept quiet for a while, wondering just how much information Fury already had on Kilgrave, if any. If there was a metahuman going around mind-controlling people, surely the person in charge of getting as many metahumans in the same place would know about him, right?  
“When I was a child, my parents adopted a boy who was a few years younger than me.”  
“That’s odd. Your public records list you as an only child.”  
“It wasn’t official. They presented him as some distant relative sent to live with us for a while.”  
“That doesn’t sound very believable.”  
“Because it wasn’t. He made them do it. He forced them to come up with a story to cover for him as he stayed at our home.”  
“Forced them?”

  
Jessica looked down.  
“The boy had… abilities. He could make anyone do what he wanted, and all he had to do was tell him so. There was no resisting him. If he told you to jump out the nearest window, you would immediately just turn around and do it. Your brain overwhelms you. You’re physically and mentally unable to resist his commands.”  
“I see…” Fury crossed his arms. “So that’s who you thought you saw?”  
She nodded.  
“After I got my powers, he… Essentially took over my mind. My consciousness. By that time, he was a completely different person from who he was as a child. He began going by the name Kilgrave, and his goal in life was to take revenge on the people who created him. He took me to those places… Laboratories where they performed experiments on metahumans. He forced me to go into each one of them and shut them down, destroying everything in my path, like I was some kind of monster…” Jessica shuddered, trying to push the thoughts out of her mind. Remembering that period of her life, even just for a little bit, was not something she wanted to dwell on. “I hurt so many people…”  
“But then he just let you go?”  
“I can’t explain it either. One day, he simply sent me away and left. I hadn’t seen him before today, when he walked into that diner. I thought he was gone for good, but for some reason now he’s back, and that can’t possibly mean anything good. So when I saw him, I flipped. But now that I know he’s around, I can do something about it. I can track him down, figure out what he’s up to and put a stop to it.”

  
Fury kept quiet for the longest time, his eyes remaining focused on Jessica’s face. Finally, he stood up from his chair, took a few steps towards the wall of file cabinets to the side of his desk and opened one of them, seemingly at random.  
“Do you, by any chance, know of one Robert Reynolds?”  
“The country star?” Jessica asked, kind of surprised that she even knew that.  
“No. Robert Reynolds is one of the most powerful metahumans we’ve ever observed. Possibly the most powerful. Invulnerability, super strength, flight, invisibility, even certain levels of molecular manipulation. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he still has powers that we haven’t discovered. The folks who studied him nicknamed him The Sentry.”  
Jessica wasn’t quite aware of how that was at all relevant to her situation, but decided to bite.  
“Okay, so why isn’t he here? I bet he could solve most of our problems pretty easily.”  
“Because…” Fury finally found the file he was looking for, closing the cabinet and returning back to his desk. “He was unable to comprehend that he was capable of doing wrong things. He blamed everything bad he ever did on an evil entity known as the Void. For the longest time, SHIELD took him on his word until we finally figured out that the Void was just another side of him.”

  
Jessica’s mouth gaped.  
“Are you… saying what I think you’re saying?”  
Fury silently passed her the folder, sliding it over the desk. The girl picked it up and promptly opened it, finding within a bunch of CDs and a few printed out black and white photos. She recognized those - the insides of some of the laboratories she and Kilgrave had visited.  
“I have security footage of every single laboratory you raided when you were a teenager. Do you really think that I’d let anyone study in my Academy without a proper background check?” Fury crossed his arms. “And I’m sorry to say, but this ‘Kilgrave’ character doesn’t appear on any of these photos. Not one. It’s just you.”  
“Yes, because he always waited outside! Why risk getting exposed, not to mention hurt, when he knew I would do the job?” She yelled at him. “And besides, why would I ever do something like that on my own in the first place?”  
“You got your powers in a laboratory just like this after your accident, didn’t you? Maybe you were mistreated there. Maybe you saw others being mistreated. You wanted to be a hero, but you didn’t know how. People got hurt. So you decided to blame it all on Kilgrave.”

  
The girl stood in her seat, motionless. Was this even really happening? Was Fury… seriously telling her that she was nuts? That she was making this whole thing up? Kilgrave had ruined her life in every conceivable way, and he was calling him a lie?!  
“You can ask Patricia Walker, she can back me up! She knew Kilgrave as a child!” Jessica desperately tried to reason with him, but Fury was unshakeable.  
“While I have no doubt that your best friend would back up whatever story you conjure, I’m afraid I need something more tangible to prove his existence. Surely you must have a picture of him? Perhaps a recording?”  
Jessica kept quiet. There were a couple of old pictures of the two of them as children back in her old house, but those had likely been all thrown out when the house was sold. And besides, they wouldn’t have proven anything anyway.  
“Ms. Jones, I’ll sign you up for three sessions with a SHIELD psychiatrist a week. They will potentially be increased or decreased, depending on the specialist’s judgment. There are obviously issues you need to work through, and I’m afraid I can’t let you go on another assignment in good conscience until they’re resolved.”  
Jessica clenched her fist. Was he seriously calling her crazy? Sure, she was damaged, emotionally unstable and impulsive, but crazy? A liar? In all honesty, it wasn’t like she couldn’t use professional help on some issues, but Fury was essentially calling her a schizophreniac!  
“And what if I say no?”  
“Then I’m afraid you may no longer be a good fit for Avengers Academy.”

  
Jessica unceremoniously stood up from her seat and reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulling out her Avengers Academy ID and throwing it down on the desk.  
“Don’t do anything that you’re going to regret, Ms. Jones.”  
“If you’re not going to help me find Kilgrave, I’m going to have to do it on my own,” she said, not even bothering to make eye contact with Fury anymore. “Thank you for the opportunity.”  
The principal said nothing as he watched the girl step through the door of his office, possibly for the very last time.

## 


	5. Alias Investigations

When Jessica was finally free of Kilgrave’s control years ago, she found herself suddenly possessing absolutely nothing but the clothes on her back. Her parents were gone, her home had been sold to pay off a mortgage she didn’t even know she had, and with that went all of her earthly possessions. She was homeless, without a dime in the pocket of the only pair of pants she owned and with no idea about what to do with her life. Just another thing that Kilgrave had completely stolen from her. Thankfully, she did manage to contact Patsy, who immediately offered her to stay at her home for as long as she needed, despite her mother’s objections. While she was living with her best friend, Jessica had to struggle with the big question - what was next? Sure, she now possessed strength beyond that of most mortal men, but so what? Unless she was willing to work construction or security her whole life, that was going to be completely pointless. It wasn’t like she was Captain America and had contacts in the military… And even if she did, a soldier’s life was probably not for her. That’s when Patsy suggested private investigator. It made sense - Jessica was observant, intelligent and could handle herself if trouble brewed about. Of course, at the time, both girls thought that PI meant more “murder investigations outside of the boundaries of the law” and less “staking out cheating spouse number 616”, but still. With Patsy’s help, Jessica managed to discover her parents’ old savings account, in which they’d been storing the money they were saving for her to attend college. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for the girl to rent a small office in Hell’s Kitchen and register her business. She was unlicensed, of course - no one was going to issue a private investigator license to a teenage girl with no training or experience, powers or no powers, but at the time that didn’t seem like such a big deal. The big deal was that she finally had a place to call her own. A teeny tiny corner of the world which belonged to her, and to her only. After some hesitation, she called it Alias Investigations.

  
Sadly, that corner of the world wouldn’t last, and now Alias Investigations was an absolute mess. The door window she had sent her very last customer flying through after he had made the highly idiotic choice to attack her was still unfixed, with tape and cardboard holding up the damage. The landlord probably counted on the next tenant who moved in to deal with the mess, which probably explained why the place was still completely abandoned. While Jessica had to bust the lock open in order to expose them, the insides weren’t in a much better shape than the glass panel. The place had been ransacked, probably by a burglar at some point or another. That was Hell’s Kitchen for you - the moment you turned your back, there was always someone ready to put a knife in it. A lot of the furniture that could be carried out was missing, and the stuff that couldn’t was vandalized beyond repair. Her desk was completely ruined, with every single drawer being unceremoniously dragged out and turned over during the ransacking. Her file cabinet’s lock had been busted open, and yet from the looks of it nothing was taken, which was understandable, since most burglars didn’t much care about case files. Hell, even the bathroom had been vandalized to the point where Jessica didn’t care if it was technically usable or not - there was no way she was going in there.

  
Thankfully, the one room that Jessica came specifically to use had been completely untouched, probably because it contained nothing but cheap chemicals and vats. Having your very own darkroom was practically a necessity for any photographers who preferred 35mm cameras to their digital counterparts, since practically no one cared to develop this type of film anymore. Jessica herself always took pride in that aspect of her work. Developing her own photos the old-fashioned way wasn’t easy to learn, but it made her feel like a pro - someone who’d go above and beyond to protect her clients’ privacy. She closed the door of the darkroom behind her and locked it before turning on the light, illuminating her surrounding in a crimson red color. Reaching out into the inner pocket of her coat, the girl pulled out her camera and swiftly removed the film. She extended the reel, looking over the individual frames she’d taken of the diner meeting. Just as she’d expected, a good number of them had been ruined by the snowfall - there was no point in developing those. A couple of the others were also quite clearly not what she was looking for. No, if she’d somehow, by some lucky coincidence, managed to capture a shot of Kilgrave, that was going to be on one of the last frames. Cracking her knuckles, Jessica quickly ran through the photo development process in her mind before grabbing a couple of the chemical solutions on the nearby shelf and pouring a bit of each into each vat. Now came the hard part.

  
As much as she hated to admit it, Jessica didn’t have unlimited shots at this - she only had a few sheets of photographic paper left to work with, and she had to make each of them count. Starting backwards on her film reel, she began developing photo after photo, dipping the photographic paper into each of the solutions until a picture finally appeared on it, which was then left to hang and dry nearby. Jessica found herself unable to examine the photos in detail due to the low lighting in the room, so instead she decided to simply develop as many as her limited supplies would allow her. At the end of the day, it wasn’t like she had anything better to do. Without the proof that Kilgrave was real, Fury wasn’t going to do anything about him, and it wasn’t like Jessica could stop him herself, at least not without knowing what his plan was. Her best bet at that moment was to try and find some proof of his existence, no matter how small, and then hope that Fury would buy it. Of course, Plan B always involved having someone like Widow help her out, but Jessica wanted to try and gain access to Fury’s massive surveillance network, first and foremost.

  
The girl’s concentration was suddenly broken by a few loud knocks on the door to her darkroom. She jumped up, glancing back behind her shoulder as she cursed under her breath. Did her old landlord notice her coming in? Had he called the police? Or even worse… Could it be Kilgrave? If he was coming after her, Alias Investigations was probably the first place he’d check.  
“Jess? Are you in there?” She heard a familiar voice from outside which quickly alleviated those concerns.  
“Yeah, just a second,” Jessica responded, quickly putting the film away to ensure it wouldn’t be ruined before turning on the white lights of the room. A moment later, she unlocked the door and took a step backwards, allowing her guest entry. Patsy Walker was wearing one of those expensive leather jackets that big companies often paid her to promote. She absolutely hated brand-name clothing, being a much bigger fan of comfy sweaters than designer shirts, but Jessica supposed that she didn’t really have much a choice in this weather.  
“Hey,” the redhead spoke, a note of concern in her voice. “I heard what happened… Are you okay?”

  
Jessica sighed. Again, that question. She was homeless and actively hunted down by the person who ruined her life. Nothing about her current situation was okay, not even remotely. And from the look in her eyes, it appeared that Patsy realized it too, despite her question.  
“What happened? Natasha told us you’d quit the Academy, but she didn’t know any details. Luke’s going out of his mind right now!”  
Natasha, of course. Considering how closely she kept tabs on Fury, it was only logical that she’d be the first to learn of her resignation. Still, as much as she appreciated her friends’ concern, Jessica couldn’t really afford to return to the Academy. Not at the moment. Not without proof. Then again, if luck was on her side, maybe she’d managed to produce the proof she needed. Turning her back on Patsy, the girl began examining the pictures hanging on the line to dry. Now that the lights were on, she could look at each one in much greater detail. It was kind of like a game of Where’s Waldo, except Waldo in this case was a dangerous psychopath.  
“Jess?” Patsy asked, concerned. A moment later, her best friend unceremoniously placed a still wet picture in her hand with a determined look in her eyes. The redhead brought it up to her face, examining it closely. Right on the edge, cut in half by the frame, was a tall man in a black trench-coat. His face was blurred, and his body was out of focus, but Patsy recognized him instantaneously. How could she not? She’d grown up alongside him. Once, a lifetime ago, she had considered him a friend. And Jessica had considered him a brother.

  
Patsy said nothing. Her mouth gaped as her eyes jumped between her best friend and the photo, unable to believe what she was seeing.  
“Oh, Jess…” She spoke quietly, her voice filled with concern. If Kilgrave truly was back in their lives, that only meant one thing - he wanted her back. He wanted his little marionette back by his side, ready to do his bidding once again whether she wanted to or not. And this time, he wasn’t going to just let her go.  
“We need to go back to the Academy,” Jessica spoke, taking the picture back. Things looked dire, that much was certain. But at least she had something. She had proof that Kilgrave was there at the diner after all. Fury could probably cross-reference his face and place him on the scene of the laboratory break-ins from three years ago. The rest of the pieces were going to fall into place.  
“My car’s outside,” Patsy nodded, quickly exiting the room and rushing out of the Alias Investigations office. A moment later, Jessica followed. She wanted to feel as concerned as her best friend, she really did, but for once, she couldn’t. They were on top of this. They had their proof, they knew Kilgrave was around, and he had no idea about any of this.

  
Just this once, they were one step ahead of him. And if things went right, they were going to catch him and put him in a transparent cell before he could utter a word.

## 


	6. Avengers Academy

Stan leaned back in his chair, his newspaper spread widely in front of him. He was an older man, not too caught up with the latest technologies just yet - while the kids out there ran around with their tablets and their smartphones and their Facebooks and Twitters, he preferred to get his news the old-fashioned way, with a nice dose of the Daily Bugle. Being the night shift guard in charge of the front gate in Avengers Academy was a job that left him with a whole lot of spare time, allowing him to slowly and gracefully go through the entire paper, from its front page to its last. Many would find such a monotonous activity tedious, especially if it happened every single day, but honestly, Stan wouldn’t have it any other way. He liked the peace and quiet surrounding his workplace. One could easily assume that being the security guard of a superhero school that got attacked by one menace or another every few weeks would be the most dangerous job in the world, but honestly, 99 times out of 100, the students were more than capable of taking care of themselves. At the end of the day, Stan’s duties pretty much amounted to letting students who locked themselves out of their dorm rooms back in and… Well, that was about it, really. And while there were a couple of students who regularly locked themselves out, for the most part, his services were required maybe once a week at the very most. During the rest of the night, nobody bothered him in his booth by the gates, allowing him to read his newspaper in peace.

  
So imagine his surprise when, shortly before midnight, he heard someone knocking on the glass of his booth. Stan quickly lowered his paper, noticing a tall, young man dressed in a trenchcoat standing right outside. He seemed about the age of the students, or maybe a bit younger, but the guard wasn’t entirely sure if he’d seen him before. He motioned towards the door of the booth with his hand before walking to it, prompting Stan to place his newspaper aside and get up from his seat before going up to the door and unlocking it.  
“Can I help you, young man?” The older gentleman asked.  
“Well, I’d certainly hope so!” He smiled widely, reaching into the inner pocket of his coat and pulling out a photograph before showing it to Stan. The guard had to adjust his glasses and lean forward in order to examine it properly, but from what he could see, it depicted a young woman who seemed awfully familiar to him. “Have you ever seen this girl, by any chance? I heard she studies here.”  
“Well, I wouldn’t know!” Stan chuckled. “You’d need to talk to Ms. Potts about it!”  
Of course, that was the old man’s very polite way of saying that he wasn’t authorized to talk about it. When he was hired, he was given specific instructions not to disclose any details about the students with outside persons, since many of them had enemies and wanted to remain incognito. If the young man really did call Pepper, he was going to be told exactly that. But from the look in his eyes, Stan knew the man wouldn’t quit.

  
“Tell me about the girl,” he spoke calmly, keeping the picture at eye level with the old man. “Now.”  
Stan nodded. Well, it probably wasn’t going to hurt if he knew a little bit, right? After all, he didn’t seem like a demon or a ninja or whatever the students were fighting. He was just a guy. Even if he had bad intentions, surely just a guy would be no match for Avenges Academy!  
“Her name is Jessica Jones, and she’s a student here. I haven’t spoken to her,” Stan said honestly. Immediately, the man grinned.  
“I knew it! I knew she had to be here!” He chuckled, turning his back on the security guard without even saying goodbye, which Stan did, admittedly, find a bit rude, but there was an even bigger problem at hand - the man was heading straight towards the gate.  
“Hey! You can’t go in there! It’s for students only!” He explained.  
The man stopped and turned around.  
“If you’re a student, just show me your identification and go right in!” Stan smiled.  
“You don’t need to see my identification,” the man spoke.  
“I don’t need to see your identification,” the guard nodded, convinced.  
“Move along.”  
“Move along!”

  
And, just like that, the man in the trenchcoat stepped into the grounds of Avengers Academy. He looked around, gazing at the numerous buildings sprawling almost as far as the eye could see. Even at his current position by the entrance he could spot a library, several jets, a stadium, a park, a laboratory, even a beach! They had a mini-beach right there at Avengers Academy! Honestly, the young man could barely resist walking over to it and checking it out up close, testing to see how accurate it felt. Not that he’d know, in any case, as he’d never been to the beach in his life, but still… For the time being, though, he resisted the temptation and continued moving further towards the quad, where more and more wonders revealed themselves. A fighting arena. A forge. Several different clubs. A… courthouse? He wasn’t exactly sure of that building’s purpose, but hey, at least he could safely say that Avengers Academy had absolutely everything and then some. He had to give it to Jessica, she had picked a wonderful place to call home. Honestly, he was kind of jealous - under other circumstances, he probably would’ve rather enjoyed studying there himself. Maybe it could still happen, one day. But for now, he knew he had to focus on his goal. If he didn’t get what he needed, anything else would’ve been meaningless, including the Academy. The young man shook his head. This was going to be a goal for another day.

  
“Selfie!” He heard a loud voice behind him. Before he could say or do anything, though, he felt a hand on his shoulder and saw an arm extending a phone past his head and towards his face. The phone was turned around, with the display facing him and the front-facing camera used for the picture, which allowed him to take a good look at the person taking it. It was a girl, one who looked a few years older than him. Short hair, unbelievably expensive-looking clothes, designer sunglasses perched up on her head… He could’ve sworn that he’d seen her somewhere, but couldn’t quite put a finger on it. Just like that, the selfie was taken and the phone ended up back into both of its owner’s hands.  
“Hey, was it good? Show it to me!” The young man insisted.  
“I think it turned out pretty great!” The girl exclaimed, turning the phone around and displaying the selfie. She was right - for someone caught completely by surprise, he looked surprisingly good. Though maybe it was because the girl simply made him look that way by being in his presence. Apparently, she had quite a lot of experience with exploiting social media to get her good side.  
“Yeah, I’d say so… You’ve got a knack for this!” He confirmed.  
“Thanks! After fulfilling a quota of 35 daily selfies since the selfie first became a thing, it just comes naturally! Like a foal at birth!” She proclaimed proudly. It was an interesting metaphor, to be sure, but that wasn’t the part that really concerned him.

  
“Thirty five? A day?” He raised an eyebrow.  
“On a bad day,” the girl confirmed with a grin. “Gotta keep those Instagram followers happy! What can I say, people just can’t get enough of Wasp!”  
That’s when it clicked. Of course he knew who she was! The Wasp was pretty much the biggest metahuman celebrity around, and that was saying something considering there was an actual movie star with powers. She had millions of followers across her platforms and gained new ones every single day. Hell, she could post a picture of a plant with an entirely unrelated quote and it was STILL going to get hundreds of thousands of favorites!  
“Oh my God, it’s you! I knew you looked familiar!” The man smiled widely, like a kid who just met a Hollywood celebrity. “I know all about you! Which is pretty impressive considering the fact that I don’t even have a phone…”  
“No phone?! What have you done to deserve that?” She asked, turning her device around and starting to fiddle with its display.  
“Ah, you know me. Technology and I just don’t mix,” he chuckled. In reality, he refused to carry electronics on him because of how traceable they were, but Wasp didn’t really need to know that.  
“Actually, I don’t! Do you have, like, electric powers? Do you make stuff explode?! That sounds awfully inconvenient, but also ridiculously cool!” Wasp chimed in. “I’m tagging the picture for Instagram, by the way. #StolenSelfie, #NewStudent, #... What’s your superhero name?”  
“Um, Kilgrave, I suppose,” he shrugged. He hardly considered himself a superhero, but still.  
Wasp kept quiet for a bit.  
“#MaverickDorm”, she concluded before publishing the picture. Kilgrave sighed. Sure, his moniker was a bit on the nose, but hey, he was, like, 11 when he came up with it - it sounded cool at the time!

  
“So, do you already know your dorm room? If you want I can have Taskmaster over there show it to you,” Wasp pointed towards the metallic dojo, where a hooded man armed with a sword and a shield was sparring against a robotic opponent.  
“Oh, no, thanks. I’m not going to be staying. I’m just here to see Jessica,” Kilgrave stated, placing his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat.  
“Which Jessica? We’ve got a few!”  
“Jones,” he confirmed.  
“Ah… Well…” Wasp chuckled awkwardly. “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news! The bad news is that she kinda sorta quit the school this morning…”  
Kilgrave narrowed his eyes. That wasn’t good. It meant she’d probably spotted him back in that diner as well. So much for the element of surprise.  
“The good news…” Wasp continued,” Is that I’ve got her number! People sometimes forget, but phones aren’t just social media machines!”  
“You sure that’s not just you?” The man asked as he watched her dial the number and place the phone to her ear. Much to his surprise, though, he actually heard the ringing. It was faint, but the ringtone was clearly audible. At first Kilgrave merely assumed that Wasp had turned her phone’s speaker on or something, until he realized that the ringing was coming from behind him, in the direction of the gate. He sighed.

  
Well, that was happening.

  
For a moment, he wondered if his reunion with his sister was going to be peaceful. Sure, they hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms, but that was a long time ago! No one said that they had to embrace and laugh about old times, but at least they could be civil, right? Well, that notion flew out the window the moment he felt Jessica’s fist landing on his lip, splitting it and sending him tumbling down on the floor. Well, at least she was holding back - if she wasn’t, his head would’ve flown out like a golf ball after a particularly good swing. Maybe there was still hope for them yet.  
“You bastard. You goddamn bastard,” she spat at him, straddling his chest and wrapping her palms around his neck. Kilgrave tried to pry them away, but it was useless - she was determined to strangle him right then and there.  
“Jessica! JESSICA! Stop! Stop right now!” Wasp screamed, terrified of the sight she was seeing. Without a second thought, she immediately shrunk down and began attacking Jessica with her stings in an attempt to knock her off of Kilgrave. While her energy blasts were generally strong enough to knock out an adult for hours, they were but a mere annoyance to a metahuman.  
“Janet, listen to me!” Jessica yelled, raising an arm to shield her face from the blasts and allowing Kilgrave to breathe once again. “You don’t get it! He can control you with his voice! You have to go away now!”  
“What? That’s insane!” Wasp objected. “I’m not letting you kill him, whoever he is! So just back off!”  
“I’d listen to her if I were you,” Jessica heard a male voice by her side. A moment later, she felt the blade of a sword on her shoulder, the tip aimed directly at her throat. Taskmaster was watching her closely, having abandoned his late night training in favor of rushing over to help with the situation. Soon enough, the girl heard more footsteps approaching her. Maria Hill, Star-Lord and Misty Knight promptly surrounded her, their weapons aimed straight at her. Jessica assumed that they must have been training nearby and, just like Taskmaster, heard the commotion before rushing over there. Honestly, the late hour was a blessing in disguise - if this was happening during the day, dozens more students would’ve approached them. When it came to Kilgrave, the less people involved with him the better, but five was still too much.

  
“Leave him! NOW!” Maria screamed.  
“I gotta admit, Jess, this isn’t exactly the best thing I’ve seen you do since you came here,” Star-Lord spoke, one of his blasters pointed towards her head and the other - towards her chest.  
“I always knew you weren’t any good,” Misty spat out.  
Jessica trembled, staring straight at all those people who were prepared to end her life if she so much as blinked wrong. When she first came in and spotted Kilgrave standing at the quad, she’d quickly sent Patsy away to Fury’s office with the photo to explain the situation and get some kind of backup. Now all she could do was wait for her best friend to convince the principal, buy her as much time as possible and hope to not get shot to death by her own classmates.  
“You don’t get it! Kilgrave can control you with his voice! If you don’t go away, he--”  
“Back. Off!” Maria spoke sternly. “Last warning, Jones!”  
Jessica looked back down at her nemesis. If she removed her hands from his throat, if she gave him even the slightest advantage, he was going to win. Currently, the only thing keeping him quiet was the threat of strangulation. But if she did try something, she was going to die. She sighed. Well, maybe that was how it was meant to be. Maybe she had to die in order to take Kilgrave with her. She had both of her hands on his throat, she could’ve broken his neck in an instant if she used all her strength. The girl felt time slowing down around her as her breathing stopped. She had to make a choice. She could become a murderer and rid this world of a man who was truly, irredeemably evil, at the cost of her own life. Or she could let him live, at the cost of potentially many others.

  
“Please, Jess…” She heard Wasp’s voice and felt her hand on her shoulder. “I know this isn’t who you are. I know you’re better than this. Show it to everyone else, too!”  
Jessica sighed. Was she really better than this, though? She didn’t think so, but at the same time… The thought of ending a life, even one as corrupting as Kilgrave’s, made her feel sick to her stomach. Wasp was right. Jess was many things, but a murderer was not one of them.  
“Goddammit…” She cursed under breath, letting go of Kilgrave’s neck and standing back up on her feet. It didn’t take long for the man in the trenchcoat to also rise up, rubbing his neck with his hands.  
“Well, then… That was certainly entertaining,” he spoke, rather annoyed. Getting this close to death probably wasn’t that fun for him, despite his claim. “Everyone, please put your weapons to your heads and use them if anything happens to me!”  
Right on cue, Maria Hill, Star-Lord and Misty pointed their guns to their foreheads, with their fingers on the triggers. Taskmaster, meanwhile, had to settle on pointing the tip of his sword to his own throat. He glared at Kilgrave with contempt, quickly realizing that he had been tricked, but the other three didn’t seem to particularly mind their newfound situation. The commands, after all, affected everyone’s brain differently - if there was some inherent desire to obey a command, no matter how small or insignificant, that desire was multiplied by a huge magnitude to the point where it completely overwhelmed the mind. If no such desire existed, however, the victim’s body was controlled artificially, making them fully aware of the manipulation. Apparently, Taskmaster was the only one among the group lacking any kind of suicidal thoughts, which greatly surprised Jessica. In fairness, she couldn’t tell how Janet would’ve been affected - as she didn’t have a weapon, Wasp was immune from Kilgrave’s last command. The only thing she did was stand back and stare at the man she’d just taken a selfie with. The same man who was now threatening to murder four of her friends.

  
“You bastard. Why don’t you stop hiding behind people and face me like a man?!” Jessica yelled.  
“I’d rather not do that. One near-death experience is enough,” he shrugged.  
“I won’t stop at near-death next time,” she crossed her arms. “What do you want?”  
“Come on, dear sister! Is it really that difficult to believe I just came here to see you?”  
“I’m not your sister. And yes, it is,” Jessica spoke firmly. “So don’t insult me and get to the point.”  
Kilgrave sighed. Well, so much for the happy family reunion.  
“I need your help.”  
“Piss off.”  
“I’m serious, Jessica. Do you remember how we broke into all of those labs across the country three years ago?” He asked her.  
In fairness, her memory was pretty hazy - there were entire weeks which were nothing but a blur to her, but she did remember the general gist, which basically involved her being forced to hurt a whole ton of innocent people against her will.  
“You turned me into a monster! A machine that broke bones and tore steel for your entertainment! And you dare to ask me if I remember the worst eighteen months of my life?! Are you kidding me?!”  
“It wasn’t for my entertainment, Jess!” Kilgrave objected. “We were looking for something. And I finally found it. It’s in New York, not too far from here. One last lab. We break in, get what we need, then break out and you never hear from me again.”  
“I’d rather die.”  
“Is this a goddamn joke to you, Jessica?!” He finally lost his cool, stepping towards her. That whole experience had really not gone the way he’d expected it to, and it was starting to take its toll.  
“Do you see me laughing?” The girl crossed her arms. “I will NEVER be your weapon again, Kilgrave. Ever.”

  
The man grit his teeth. He leaned forward, as if hoping that the physical proximity between them would somehow amplify his abilities.  
“Come with me, Jessica. Help me. Please. I need you.”  
“That doesn’t work on me anymore,” she shook her head.  
“You’re making a mistake.”  
“The only mistake I made is that I took you in eight years ago.”  
Kilgrave kept quiet.  
“So you’re saying that, if you could go back to when we were kids, you would’ve left me to die?”  
“That is exactly what I’m saying.”  
“How? How can you even say that, after everything we’ve--”  
“You’re seriously not getting it?!” Jessica screamed. “You killed my parents! You destroyed my family! You turned me into a monster! You ruined my life! Hell, you’re threatening my friends right now! Everything that’s wrong with me is because of you! And your deluded mind still somehow thinks that I’m going to hurt even more people for you just because you suddenly showed up and told me to? I would rather die.”

  
Kilgrave lowered his gaze. Honestly, he never expected a warm reunion. He never even expected to patch things up. He knew he messed up, more than once, even if neither time was intended. But he never expected this level of hatred from the girl he once called his big sister. Never. Finally, he raised his eyes, glaring at Jessica.  
“You know, I was really hoping we could be civil about this. Try and patch things up like adults. I was willing to meet you halfway. But if that’s how you’re going to be acting, I think it’s time I reminded you that I can be way worse.”  
Jessica narrowed her eyes. She knew those threats were empty. Kilgrave was evil and despicable, but he wasn’t going to actually hurt any of the Academy students, especially not when his life depended on theirs.  
“You know, the fun thing about being in a school for gifted students is that you have a whole ton of them to choose from. To be perfectly honest, I always did find your methods a bit brutish,” he shrugged, turning towards Wasp. “Someone who can shrink, on the other hand, would be perfect for a more… discreet approach.”  
“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare!” Jess growled.  
“You had your chance, Jessica! Now it’s time to replace you!” Kilgrave spoke. “Wasp, you’re coming with me. And if you see Jessica following us outside of the Academy, bite your tongue off and swallow it.”  
Reluctantly, Janet nodded.  
“And as for the rest of you…” He turned towards Star-Lord, Maria, Misty and Taskmaster. “Once we leave, you’ll forget I was ever here. And if anyone asks where Wasp is, just tell them she’s on vacation in… Tahiti.”

  
And with that, Kilgrave turned around and slowly headed back towards the entrance to the Academy, with Wasp following suit. Once he was out, he was also going to tell the security guard to forget they ever spoke. Unless the campus had security cameras pointed at the quad, which seemed highly unlikely, that was bound to eliminate all traces of his surprise visit to Avengers Academy. As soon as he crossed the gate, the four people surrounding Jessica lowered their weapons, shrugged and then went their separate ways. The girl herself could do little else than fall down on her knees, soundly defeated. She had the upper hand. She had the evidence. He knew that Kilgrave was here. And he still won. A few moments later, she felt a hand on her shoulder.  
“Jess?” Patsy spoke reluctantly.  
“Kilgrave took Janet and then left… I couldn’t stop him… I couldn’t do anything…” The girl lamented, staring at the ground.  
“Oh, Jess…” Her best friend sighed. Jessica exhaled, trying to pull herself back together.  
“If she sees me, she’s dead, but maybe Fury’s people or the rest of the students can still catch up to them and capture him. Does Fury have a track on Kilgrave?”  
“He… He didn’t believe me, Jess. I don’t know what to tell you, I…” Patsy stuttered. “I tried to explain everything, but he just acted like you were threatening me to tell your story! He wouldn’t even look outside to see what was happening! I am so, so sorry…”

  
Jessica felt a cold, sharp piece of glass lodge itself into her stomach and then twist itself. This was it. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The last nail in the coffin of what just might have been one of the worst days of her life. Screaming as loudly as her lungs would let her, Jessica raised her fist and brought it down upon the ground, fracturing the concrete that covered the quad. A moment later, her hand began bleeding.

## 


	7. Kilgrave's Residence

“Well, here we are,” he spoke, holding the door for Wasp. “Come on in.”

The girl reluctantly stepped through, looking around her surroundings. On the car ride there, the only thing she could think of was what horrible prison this person who just made her friends put a gun to their own heads before kidnapping her could be taking her to, but honestly, now that she was there, this didn’t look too bad. It was just a normal, boring, suburban house, like the type a family would choose to raise a child in. Janet herself had been raised in luxury, with her parents living in what could only be described as a palace, but many of her childhood friends came from homes just like this one. Everything was painfully normal, almost to the point of banality. No basement filled with chained prisoners, no fridge containing human organs, no screaming orphans cooking in the oven… Kilgrave’s house was completely, utterly, inconspicuously average, to the point where the lack of anything suspicious was suspicious in and of itself.  
“I know it’s not much, but, uh… Make yourself at home,” he chuckled awkwardly. “Are you hungry? I think Mrs. De Luca left some food in the fridge. I’m not the best cook, but I can probably whip something up.”  
Janet shook her head. The events that had unfolded back at the Academy had killed her appetite pretty thoroughly.  
“Okay, well, uh… At least you should get some rest. Tomorrow’s a big day and all. There’s a few bedrooms upstairs if you--”

  
“You can’t do that!” Wasp finally yelled, staring straight into Kilgrave’s eyes. He paused.  
“Do what?” The man asked, confused.  
“You can’t come into my home, threaten my friends’ lives, kidnap me to help you with some shady scheme and then expect me not to kick your ass! That’s not how I work!” She blew up at him, taking a few steps towards this strange, young man and shoving a finger in his chest. The girl was utterly terrified of him and his powers, of course she was, but at the same time his smug arrogance was getting on her nerves. Kilgrave narrowed his eyes.  
“Sit down and don’t ever talk to me like that again,” he ordered calmly. Wasp nodded, turning back and taking a seat at the dinner table. In her mind, she didn’t feel opposed to doing it, and yet there was a small voice in the back of her mind that wouldn’t stop screaming in terror, as if it was staring straight at a wild, rabid animal.  
“I’m sorry for threatening your friends, okay? I really, really am. But I promise that they were never in any real danger. The last thing I want to do is kill someone,” he spoke to her sincerely, leaning against the table. “But I am really desperate here, and there’s no one else I can turn to for help. Just do this one thing for me, and I promise I will let you go.”  
“I’m not hurting anyone for you if that’s what you want,” she crossed her arms. Kilgrave sighed.  
“We’ll discuss it more after I take a shower. I’m tired, I’m frustrated, and I need to relax and think about things.”  
Wasp kept quiet. She kind of wanted to take a shower too, all things considered, but showering in this psychopath’s house, of all places, was probably a bad idea. Kilgrave stretched his shoulders and neck before taking off his trenchcoat and hanging it nearby.  
“Don’t leave this house until I say you can…” He ordered her, more as a safety measure than anything else. Looking around, the young man’s eyes settled on the phone hanging from the wall on the other side of the room, which reminded him. “And give me your phone.”

  
Reluctantly, Wasp reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell, her fingers moving on their own. She pouted, but obeyed the instruction quickly, holding out the device for Kilgrave to take and promptly dismantle.  
“You are literally the worst, you know that?”  
“Sorry… You can have it back after we’re done, I promise, but for now it’s better if I hold onto it. I can’t risk you texting or tweeting or whatever and letting Jessica know we’re here. And just so you know, that phone over there only takes incoming calls, so don’t even try it,” he spoke. Wasp crossed her arms, watching her kidnapper walk away and close the door behind him. Once she was alone, the girl promptly got up from her seat and looked around, trying to come up with some kind of plan. Leaving the house was impossible, obviously. Hiding was also not going to be an option, not when he could just order her to show herself. Really, her best bet at that point was to sneak up on Kilgrave while shrunk and blast him a few times with her stingers, knocking him out. He didn’t seem like he had any other powers besides the mind control, so he was probably going to be out for at least a few hours, giving her plenty of time to reassemble her phone and call someone for help. The problem was that her stingers didn’t work when she was full-sized, and shrinking took a couple of seconds - and if he saw her doing it, he was going to order her to stop. She had to find a way to distract him first. Perhaps she could shrink and wait for him to walk out of the bathroom? That sounded like the safest plan - that way, even if he spotted her, he was going to be shot down before he could say anything. But first, Janet had to find where said bathroom was.

  
Carefully, she slipped out of what appeared to be the dining room and stepped out into the hallway. Kilgrave had mentioned that there were bedrooms upstairs, so for now the girl decided to only focus on the first floor and then eventually move her way back up, if she didn’t find what she was looking for. She’d assumed that the door to the bathroom would be rather obvious, but surprisingly, that wasn’t quite the case - most of them were entirely identical. She sighed. One at a time it was, then. The first door Janet opened led to something very clearly resembling a living room, complete with a couch big enough for an entire family, a huge TV and stereo system placed right in front of it, a table between them and numerous shelves on the right. Wasp didn’t particularly imagine Kilgrave as being the type to sit on a couch all day binging “Orange is the New Black”, but hey, everyone had their hobbies, right? She was prepared to close the door and move on to the next room when something caught her eye - a couple of frames carefully laid out on the shelves to the right of the TV, like the type you’d place pictures in. Her curiosity piqued, Wasp carefully entered the room, being careful not to make her heeled shoes click against the wooden floor. Approaching the pictures, she took one of them in her hands and carefully examined it. It was a family portrait of two adults, a man and a woman, as well as two kids, a boy and a girl, with the girl being a little bit older than the boy. The portrait appeared to be rather staged, like one of those pictures the family specifically takes for Christmas in order to send to relatives along with postcards or something, but it did seem rather cute - Janet herself had never taken anything like that with her own family, so she did feel a tinge of jealousy despite how utterly awkward the kids must have felt being forced to pose like that. The next photo she took was a lot more natural, featuring just the children. They were a little bit older and, judging by their uniforms and backpacks, were preparing for their first day of school somewhere. Unlike in the first photo, the girl didn’t even attempt to fake a smile, not looking too thrilled about her upcoming school year. The boy, on the other hand, seemed downright ecstatic - his enthusiasm actually kind of reminded Janet a lot of herself. The girl’s face also seemed familiar, and, all things considered, it wasn’t really hard for Wasp to figure out who the children in the photo were.

  
Placing the photo back on the shelf, Janet was ready to continue her search when she spotted something she hadn’t noticed the first time she went in, probably because of its position. On the wall, right next to the doorframe, lay several lines which extended to the right for about 5-6 centimeters. She stepped forward, tracing one of the lines with her fingers and examining it closely. It took her a moment to notice that there was something written in pencil right above it - “Jessica, 13”. And below it was another line, with “Jessica, 12” inscribed, marking the girl’s height at that age. And then, right below that, another line - “Kevin, 11”.  
“Kevin, huh…” She whispered to herself, looking at the lines again. Up until that point, she’d assumed that Kilgrave had simply bought some house, or even worse, stolen it, and then placed some childhood photos in there as mementos, but… Chances were, that wasn’t the case. It was crazy, but could this really be the actual house in which he and Jessica grew up? If that was the case… She needed to know. She needed to know what happened between them, what turned Kilgrave into this monster and what exactly made Jessica this bitter, broken girl she was. Operation “Wait for Kilgrave To Get Out Of The Shower And Stick Him With A Stinger” was put on hold… At the very least until she could come up with a better name for it.

  
Leaving the living room, Wasp made her way up the stairs, coming face to face with several identical doors. Geez, how did these people even live there? She would’ve gotten lost all the time! Still, she picked the first one on the left and ended up straight into what she assumed to be Jessica’s room, unless Kilgrave was seriously into “Linkin’ Park”, Hot Topic clothing and, most interestingly of all, a large assortment of stuffed teddy bears arranged on their own shelf. Janet counted thirteen in total, each one a little bit different from the rest. It seemed a little excessive, but hey, she wasn’t judging. She stepped towards the desk in the back of the room and ran her fingers across its surface, failing to notice even a speck of dust - Kilgrave, or at the very least that Mrs. De Luca he’d mentioned earlier, had been keeping the entire place spotless, through and through. But why? Was he feeling guilt for killing Jessica’s parents? That certainly didn’t seem like him, but on the other hand, what possibly explanation could there be? Sentimentality? Janet shrugged. The answers probably lied somewhere in this house, and she was going to find them, one way or another. Sitting down on the chair in front of the desk, she opened the drawers attached to it and began looking through the items inside. School supplies, books (so 13 year old Jessica was a fan of “The Hunger Games” and “City of Glass”, who knew) and numerous notepads filled them, but alas, nothing resembling a diary or just anything that would help shed light on the situation. Wasp stood up from her seat, determined to continue her search, only to come face to face with a very, very angry looking Kilgrave.

  
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” He asked, barely able to contain himself from screaming. The young man was now wearing a white T-shirt and grey shorts - a much more casual attire than what he wore before, which didn’t suit him at all. How in the world did he manage to shower and get dressed so quickly, anyway? Janet was convinced that it hadn’t taken her more than a couple of minutes to look through everything!  
“Answer me!” He demanded.  
“I was looking for answers,” she responded honestly. “Why are we in Jessica’s old house? What happened between you two? And what exactly is it that you want me to do for you that’s so important?”  
“You know, you could’ve just asked! There was no reason to go snooping about in someone else’s belongings!”  
“Well, how was I supposed to know you wouldn’t lie to me?” She crossed her arms.  
“Why would I lie to you? After tomorrow I’ll never see you again!”  
Wasp kept quiet. He did have a point, as much as she hated to admit it.

  
“Okay, fine! Then tell me why we’re in Jessica’s old house!”  
“First off, it’s not just Jessica’s old house - I lived here too. Her parents adopted me when I was eight.”  
“Did they want to adopt you, or did you make them?”  
“Well, if you were an eight year old who had to endure brain biopsies, surgeries, fluoroscopies and injections directly into the spinal cord all your life while never leaving a 15 by 15 foot cell for anything other than a painful medical procedure, and suddenly you had a chance to live a normal life with parents who would love you and take care of you, wouldn’t you do it?”  
One again, Janet said nothing. There was no denying it - anyone would snap if they had to go through something like that as a child. Honestly, it was surprising that Kilgrave was as coherent as he was.  
“You really went through all that?” She asked quietly. He nodded.  
“I was born in a lab. I’m a bit murky on the details, but I think I was genetically engineered to have this power, as some sort of… experiment. Literally all I know about my origin is that my mother was an illegal immigrant from Croatia. I’ve been scouring labs that experiment on metahumans across the country trying to find out more, but until now I’ve found nothing about myself.”

  
“Is that what you and Jessica were doing? You know, when you…” Wasp asked, careful not to get into territory that was a bit too sensitive. Kilgrave kept quiet.  
“Something like that. After Jessica’s incident, I was contacted by this man… Doyle. He told me where to find her, and how to break her out.”  
“Just like that?”  
“Just like that. No strings or anything, he just said ‘Your sister’s being held here, she’s in a coma but she’s stable, here are the floor plans, what you do with this information is your business’, and then he left.”  
Janet crossed her arms. Sounded like a disgruntled employee who didn’t approve of the laboratory’s practices finally decided to do something about it.  
“At first I just thought I’d set her free and then… I don’t know, disappear. Go somewhere far away. I thought she’d hate me.”  
“Because you killed her parents?”  
Kilgrave kept quiet for a moment.  
“I did kill her parents.”

  
The girl sighed. Well, at least he was honest about it, maybe even remorseful… But something told her he wasn’t exactly losing sleep over it.  
“So you thought it was a good idea to force someone, your own adoptive sister, no less, to start breaking into labs and snapping bones or whatever? Especially after killing her parents?”  
“Okay, when you put it like that, it wasn’t exactly my brightest idea. But in my defense, I did let her go!”  
“Why did you do that? Don’t tell me you finally saw that controlling a sentient human being against her will is wrong!”  
Kilgrave clenched a fist and looked down, and Janet immediately regretted having pushed him. So far, she’d gotten the impression that she was being honest with her - either that, or he was just an amazing liar. Being antagonistic towards someone who was opening up, even if said someone was a pretty horrible person who was holding her hostage, was probably not brightest of ideas.  
“What’s this, an interrogation?”  
“Hey, you promised to answer my questions!”  
“I thought our work was done. That’s why. There, question answered,” he spoke, averting his eyes. A very obvious lie, but the girl decided not to push it.  
“So, where did you find all of those labs that you broke into?”  
“They all came from Doyle. Every single one. He was oddly specific, but I eventually realized that he was leading me on a wild goose chase, for whatever reason. After I let Jessica go, I cut contact with him and started looking for labs on my own.”

  
“And I’m guessing that’s where I come in?” She asked.  
“That’s right. I think I finally found it. I think I found the place where I was born, right here in New York. If that doesn’t give me the answers, nothing will.”  
Wasp sighed. It was true that Kilgrave was still pretty horrible… He was spoiled, impulsive, aggressive and used to getting his way, not to mention seemed to have very little regard for the free will of those around him. But, deep down, he was just a lost little boy hoping to find a place where he belonged after a lifetime of rejection. She could understand that, even if she didn’t condone his actions.  
“Okay, you sold me! Let’s break in and find your mom!” Janet announced cheerfully.  
“Wait, seriously? You’re gonna do it just like that? Without being told to?”  
“Look, I’m gonna be super honest with you - I think Jessica’s right to be pissed at you,” she stated. “But at the same time, I can tell that this is really important to you… And besides, it sounds exciting!”  
Kilgrave stared at her for a bit before emitting a sigh of relief.  
“Well, that’s--”  
“But there’s a condition!”  
He paused.  
“A condition?”  
“If we break in, we’re getting everyone out. I’m talking about the prisoners who are being experimented on in there. There’s bound to be some, and we are certainly not leaving them alone!”

  
Kilgrave leaned back against the wall, considering the situation. He was digging the idea, all things considered, but…  
“It’s not going to be easy.”  
“There’s nothing impossible for the astonishing Wasp!” She exclaimed. “And besides, you can make people do what you want them to! Together we can get those kids out of there in no time!”  
“Heh... I like the way you think. Alright, let’s do it! Let’s get them out!”  
“Yeah!” Wasp pumped her fists in the air. “We’re gonna be superheroes!”  
“Don’t get too excited, our main priority is still accessing the databanks and obtaining my file.”  
“Too late! Way too excited now!” She proclaimed with a lighthearted chuckle, her fear and apprehension over her terrifying situation all but gone. Kilgrave, on the other hand, only appeared to share her enthusiasm on the surface.  
“This is just a suggestion, but you might want to get some sleep. It’s pretty late, and we’ll be heading out pretty early tomorrow.”  
“Are you serious? There’s no way I’m getting a wink of sleep until this is all over!”  
“Uh, okay…” He shrugged. “What do you typically do when you pull an all-nighter?”  
“Well, I browse Twitter, I binge series on Netflix, I sew, that one time I hosted a live Q&A on Periscope for an entire night…”  
“Wait, you sew?” Kilgrave stopped her. “My-- Jessica’s mom used to be a seamstress!”  
“Seriously?!” Wasp gasped. “So she’s got a sewing machine and cloth around here?”  
“A sewing machine, definitely. Cloth… I’m not entirely sure. I think the last thing she was making were some purple curtains for Jessica’s room. She always liked that color.”

  
The girl turned towards the window, noticing for the first time that it was, in fact, bare.  
“So… Lots of purple, huh?”  
“Think you can work with that?”  
“Give me a thread and needle and I can work with anything!” She proclaimed proudly.  
“What exactly are you thinking, anyway?” He asked.  
“Let’s just say… We’ll be breaking those people out with style!”

## 


	8. Five Years Ago

“Jessica! Jeeeessica! Wake up, Jessica!” The girl heard a voice calling her from her bedside. Reluctantly, she rose up in her bed, her hand moving up to rub her eyes. She really, really hated it when her little brother woke her up like that. In a way, he was like the perfect alarm clock - when he told you to get up, you had absolutely no choice but to do it and listen to what he wanted. Snoozing simply was not an option with him. Jessica herself was often a pretty heavy sleeper, so him waking her up for school every once in a while was pretty useful. However, the girl couldn’t figure for the life of her why he would ever do it on a Saturday. 

“Okay, okay, I’m up…” She muttered, turning her eyes towards the clock on her nightstand. 8:30 AM… Boy, this was just going to be one of those days, wasn’t it?

  
Ever since Kevin joined the family three years ago, life had certainly been… exciting, to say the least. It was quickly made apparent that the boy had been imprisoned for his entire life up until that point, subjected to brutal procedures and never even remotely given the chance to be a real child. As such, his adoptive parents, with Jessica in tow, did their best to help him catch up on all the things he’d missed up until that point. Every chance they had they went to the zoo, to amusement parks, to festivals and events… They watched fireworks on New Year’s eve, they went to farmer’s markets, they ate out at all sorts of places any chance they got… Even without using his abilities, Kevin usually got whatever he wanted from his parents. Jessica didn’t enjoy nearly the same privileges. Sure, she benefited from Kevin’s activities, but when it came to asking her parents to let her do things like go to a concert or have a sleepover with someone other than Patsy, the answer was typically “no”. She could understand - her brother had gone through hell, and she’d lived a comfortable life in the suburbs. It was only fair that he got to have it easier. Still, the girl couldn’t help but feel a little bit jealous of him… Maybe that was the reason why she was the only one who treated him like an equal rather than like a broken object that had to be handled with care.

  
“Come on, get ready! There’s an anime convention and mom said you can take me!” Kevin exclaimed. Jessica sighed, pulling the covers away from her and stepping down on the floor. She hated it when her brother used his powers to manipulate her like that, but chalked it up on him not realizing he was doing it… And besides, it wasn’t like she wasn’t going to do it anyway. Disobeying her mom was basically the worst idea in all of the cosmos.  
“An anime convention? Do you even know what anime is?” Jessica asked, walking into the bathroom directly connected to her room and grabbing her toothbrush.  
“Well, I mean… It’s like Japanese animation, right? Like, uh… Avatar?” He shrugged, sitting down on her bed.  
The girl rolled her eyes.  
“Dhash nhot ahnimeh”, she tried to speak, her mouth filled with foam as she diligently brushed her teeth.  
“Well, I dunno… Pokemon? You know, it doesn’t matter! On the site they said there’s gonna be lots of people in costumes, shops with merchandise and a Mortal Kombat tournament! That sounds epic!”  
Jessica spat out the foam and rinsed her face with water.  
“Is that what this is about? You want to watch some guys play violent videogames?”  
“There’s only so much Minecraft I can take!” He shrugged. Jessica sighed. Yep, same old Kevin.

  
Stepping out of the bathroom, the girl made a small circle with her finger to tell her brother to turn around before promptly taking her sleepwear off. She opened her wardrobe, taking a moment to pick out her outfit for the day before settling on a grey T-shirt with a stylized skull on it, black jeans and her favorite leather jacket.  
“You know, if you’d told me earlier we might have been able to make some costumes on our own,” she noted while getting dressed, trying to sound nonchalant.  
“Yeah, that might have been fun… I wouldn’t know who to dress up as, though.”  
“I mean, there’s always Captain America?”  
“Everyone and their mother is gonna be Captain America!” Kevin objected.  
“I don’t know… I guess there’s really not much of a point in discussing it, though. But we should probably come up with some ideas for next year,” she spoke.  
“Yeah! Let’s do that!” The boy smiled widely.

  
It only took Jessica a few moments to get ready. She wasn’t really much of a make-up and hair kind of girl, even at that age, which - alongside her preferred style of clothing - had earned her a reputation as a bit of a tomboy at school. In reality, though, it was mostly because all of that seemed like way too much work to her. All her life she’d watched Patsy spend hours upon hours in dressing rooms being powdered, ironed and smeared with chemicals, all for the sake of appearing “beautiful” even though she was already quite cute, at least in Jessica’s opinion. The whole thing just kind of turned the girl off of any kind of beauty products - a hair brush was all she needed in order in order to get ready to go out. The only exception to this rule was hair dye, as a few months ago Jessica (after a whole lot of begging, pleading and bargaining with her parents) had dyed the tips of her hair a dark purple color, but that was mostly because, as annoying as it was, dying hair was only a “once in a while” kind of deal. And besides, she liked the way it looked - purple was always her favorite color, and it seemed to match her otherwise boring black hair pretty well. Afterwards, the girl wanted to experiment with other colors, like red or blue, but that was something future Jess was going to deal with.

  
“Okay, I’m done,” Jessica proclaimed. “Are we gonna eat here, or grab something on the way?”  
“On the way,” Kevin nodded, standing up from the bed and turning around, smiling at his sister. “The convention starts at 9:30, so we gotta get moving!”  
“Let me guess - we don’t have tickets, do we?” She sighed.  
“Who needs tickets when I can just politely ask them to let us in?” The boy grinned.  
“Kev, we talked about this. No powers in public, ever. That manipulation thing is really not cool.”  
“Hey, I’m only doing it when absolutely necessary, I promise,” he tried to assure her, raising his hands up defensively. “And besides, we can probably get tickets on the spot. I’ll just power us in if we can’t.”  
Jessica nodded. It wasn’t a plan she was 100% behind, but, well… There was no saying no to Kevin. Once he got it in his head that he wanted to do something, few could really stop him one way or another.  
“Race you to the car?” He suggested with a mischievous grin before bolting it out of Jessica’s room, leaving the girl by herself. Knowing that leaving her little brother by himself generally spelled trouble for both him and the people around him, Jessica followed him like a responsible sibling… Only to see him standing right there, in the middle of the hall, peeking carefully into the dining room. The girl stopped dead in her tracks. Wasn’t this supposed to be a race?

  
“Kev?” She asked, slowly approaching him. Her brother said nothing, his eyes intently staring through the crack in the door. As Jessica stepped forward, she could clearly hear voices coming from the dining room. Two of them obviously belonged to her parents, but the third one - a man in his 30s, likely African-American judging by his timbre - was completely unknown to her.  
“Unfortunately, the injections will be painful. There’s just no way to really get around that, and putting him under for each one isn’t practical. But I promise, I wouldn’t have brought it up if the procedures weren’t absolutely essential,” the man spoke, his voice sounding calm and even. Jessica heard her mother sobbing quietly.  
“Of course. You know best,” Brian, her father, spoke, his own voice trembling. “So you’re saying that, if he undergoes these procedures, he’s going to be… Fine? Completely?”  
“I can’t really say for certain at that stage. Since he escaped confinement, I’ve been unable to monitor him and have no idea how his brain has developed… But I know for a fact that trying is better than just leaving him alone. So, with your consent, I would like to continue the treatment where it left off three years ago.”  
“Please! Please, just make him well, Doctor!” Alisa pleaded. “Everything has been different since he came into our lives! I don’t think I could take it if… If…”  
“I promise you, I’ll do my best,” the man spoke. “But for now, I don’t think it would be a good idea to tell him about this. He might not take it very well, considering his age…”

  
“Tell me what?” Kevin finally spoke up, pushing the door open and stepping inside. Jessica remained frozen in place, out of sight in the hallway. Did she really just hear what she thought she’d heard?  
“Oh, baby…” Alisa sighed, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.  
“That you sold me out? That you want to send me back in that hellhole so I can be cut open again?”  
“It’s not like that at all, Kev!” Brian interfered, pointing towards the man sitting opposite him on the dining table - a costumed, bearded guy who couldn’t look more shady if he tried. “This man here is Dr. Jonathan Witter! He wants to help you!”  
“Shut up! All of you shut up!” The boy yelled, his hands clenching into fists. Kevin felt his blood boiling as he stepped towards the adults, who quickly stood up and stepped away from him in fear, having never seen him this upset. The only thing he ever wanted was to live there, in peace, as the Jones’ son… And he couldn’t even have that without being backstabbed by the only people in the world that he loved and trusted.

  
“You!” Kevin pointed at Dr. Witter. “Get the hell out of here. Now!”  
The man seemed reluctant to do so, but ultimately complied. Who could blame him? It wasn’t like he had a choice in the matter. Jessica’s parents, on the other hand, wouldn’t be so lucky.  
“And you…” The boy glared at them with hatred, his hands shaking and his knuckles turning white. “Pick up a knife and put them to your throat.”  
Slowly, Alisa and Brian stepped towards the utensils drawer and retrieved a sharp kitchen knife each before pressing the blades against their own necks, their hands trembling and their eyes wide open in sheer terror. But before Kevin could say anything else, he felt a firm grip on his arm.  
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Jessica screamed at him, utterly terrified. “Let them go! NOW!!!”  
“Why? So they can turn me in? Take me back to that lab?” He asked, shaking his arm free.  
“Because they’re your parents!” His sister tried to persuade him.  
“My ‘parents’ just sold me out!” Kevin screamed, pointing at them. “You heard what they were talking about! Tell me they didn’t mean it!”  
“They…” Jessica stuttered, really wanting to say that, but honestly, as much as she didn’t want to admit it, all evidence pointed towards the fact that her parents wanted to get rid of him. It made no sense, but… How else was she supposed to interpret that conversation? “Kev, please…”

  
“No”, he shook his head. “Not Kevin. Not anymore. I’m done.”  
Jessica trembled. She took a step back, towards the front door, all while staring at her little brother like a wild animal that could maul her at any minute. Despite his tall stature, he still looked so much like a child… It was hard to believe that the person who basically held Jessica’s parents at gunpoint and had the power to kill them all at any moment was only eleven years old, and just a few minutes prior they were preparing to go to an anime convention. It was a dark, vengeful, blood-thirsty side of him that she’d never even suspected was there before, despite his traumatic upbringing. Did Kevin harbor all this rage and hatred all along, or did he flip the switch just now? Honestly, both options sounded equally terrifying.  
“So what, you want to run away? You want to abandon me too? What a surprise!” He sighed. “Well, go on, then, what are you waiting for? Go!”  
Slowly, Jessica continued to walk towards the door, afraid to turn her back on Kevin. Thankfully, his command was just vague enough to allow her to go around it, for the time being.  
“Didn’t you hear what I told you? I said go! Come on! Do it!!” he screamed out at Jessica, spewing out all of his rage, anger and fear at her.

  
The guttural sounds of people choking and drowning filled the room.

  
Kevin’s whole body began shaking as he slowly turned around and realized what he’d done. The sight before him was, without a doubt, the most horrifying thing he’d ever seen in his life, and yet he just could not look away from it. He felt the contents of his stomach churning and his knees going weak. His mind went blank, his thoughts fully replaced by the crimson colors staining everything before him. There was only one, single phrase that echoed through the blank walls of his consciousness, over and over again - “I didn’t mean it”. Jessica, on the other hand, felt much like the last survivor in a horror movie. The fact that her parents were gone hadn’t hit her just yet - that was going to come later, once the adrenaline rush wore off. Her fight or flight instinct kicked in in full force, and the scales were heavily stacked in favor of flight. Immediately, the girl turned around and slammed the door open, running off onto the street. Patsy’s house had a security system against home invasions - if she could get there, she’d be safe for at least a while. Kevin tried to recover from the shock as best as he could, chasing after his sister. By the time he spotted her, she was right in the middle of crossing the street to her best friend’s place.  
“Jessica, stop!” He screamed at her. She obeyed, freezing in the middle of the road.  
Even if the truck driver had managed to hit the breaks, he could’ve never stopped on time.

  
At that moment, as he watched his sister mowed down right in front of him, Kevin’s entire world collapsed around him. He rushed up towards the bloody mess that was once Jessica as the truck made a swift getaway, leaving them both behind. The girl was unrecognizable. When the boy’s shaking hands tried to lift her up, he could hear squishing and cracking within. Tears streamed down his eyes.  
“J-Jess…” He muttered, his shaky voice barely able to produce any sounds at all. “L-live! You must live, okay? That’s an order! Live!”  
Kevin glanced up, desperately looking around for someone - anyone - who could help them. This early in the morning on a Saturday, though, the streets were empty. There was just one person around, and it was the last man the boy ever wanted to see. After being chased out of the house, it appeared that Dr. Jonathan Witter had spent his time just waiting outside, possibly for Brian and Alisa to show up. When he saw the accident, the man immediately rushed towards them.  
“You’ve got to save her! You’ve got to!” Kevin begged him.  
“I… I don’t think I can… I think she’s gone, Kevin.”  
“No, she’s not! Didn’t you hear me? I said save her! SAVE HER! No matter what, save her!!!”

## 


	9. Jones Residence

Jessica wrapped her arms around herself as she stared at the road in front of her old house. The last clear memory she had of her childhood was, ironically, the moment when it ended, courtesy of a murderous psychopath and a head-on collision with a truck. After that, up until Kilgrave set her free three years ago, it was all a blur. Most of her memories were foggy, like half-remembered dreams that possibly weren’t even real. Others were missing entirely. Jessica theorized that prolonged and continuous exposure to whatever pheromones Kilgrave released in order to enforce his mind control caused lapses in memory. Honestly, it was a blessing disguised as a curse. Who knew what horrifying things her so-called “brother” had put her through while she was under his control? Jessica had faint memories of attacking people who had no way of defending themselves, of breaking their arms and cracking their ribs. It was images like that which often crept into her nightmares, alongside Kilgrave’s slimy, disgusting voice penetrating her mind. And it all started right there, on this very road. In this very house.

  
The same place where Janet was being held.

  
Jessica took a deep breath, trying not to imagine what horrors her schoolmate was going through… And what she had already gone through. It had been a few hours since Kilgrave showed up at the Academy, and during this time Jessica and Patsy were desperately trying to track down Wasp’s location based on her phone’s GPS. Every single modern cell phone came equipped with a GPS, for navigation… And to help track it down in case it was lost or stolen. Jessica knew Kilgrave was likely not tech-savvy enough to know about it, and as such he had probably allowed Janet to keep her phone, only ordering her not to call or text anyone. As such, it was entirely possible to track down her phone’s location - the hard part was breaking into Wasp’s account and accessing the lost phone feature. That was what had eaten up most of their time. Coming up with her username and e-mail address was easy enough, since she used the same ones all over her social media, but it was the password that was giving her the most trouble. None of the combinations she inputted resulted in a match, and knowing Wasp, it was probably going to be something that only she herself would ever guess. Jessica found herself having to use a third party client in order to gain access to her e-mail by tricking gmail into thinking the user had inputted a correct password (it was a tool that Jessica sometimes had to use during her investigations, even if it took quite a while to work), and then using that entry to reset Janet’s GPS recovery password which, thankfully, was a lot easier than expected. Resetting something like Facebook, Twitter or Instagram would’ve probably required two-step verification, but for obvious reasons all Jessica had to do in order to access the GPS coordinates of Janet’s phone was click a link sent to her inbox.

  
According to that data, the phone had stopped transmitting information hours ago… But its last known location was one that was very familiar to the private eye. Grabbing Patsy, the two left the redhead’s home and drove all the way to Birch Street, Jessica’s childhood home. She didn’t know what Kilgrave was doing there. She didn’t care, either. At that moment, all she wanted to do was sneak in, knock him out, get him and Janet out of there and then drag his ass back to the Academy before sticking him into a transparent cell. With Wasp being an eyewitness, there was literally no way Fury wouldn’t believe her. She had no reason to lie, being a neutral party in this whole thing. The nightmare would finally be over, forever. And all they had to was play their cards right.  
“You don’t have to go in, you know,” Patsy placed a hand on her best friend’s shoulder.  
“Yes, I do,” Jessica nodded. Patsy was a badass in her own right, but she was just as powerless against Kilgrave as anyone else. There was only one person who could resist his abilities… And with a nod, the redhead also acknowledged it.  
“What’s the plan?” She asked.  
“Kilgrave would be expecting me. He knows I’m not stupid, and I’d probably figure out where he’s hiding sooner or later. He doesn’t expect you, though. So while I go through the front door and keep him distracted…”  
“I sneak out back and take him out. Got it,” Patsy nodded. “Do I just… Hit him over the head or something?”  
“Yeah, something like that. Just make sure he doesn’t see you,” Jessica spoke.  
“Okay… What about Wasp?”  
The black-haired woman sighed. That was… A difficult question to answer, or even think about.  
“We should assume that she’s under Kilgrave’s control. Try not to hurt her, but if there’s no other way…”  
“Right,” Patsy nodded. “I’m ready… I think.”

  
Jessica nodded back at her, watching as her best friend disappeared behind her childhood home. They didn’t have a backdoor or anything, but Patsy was always resourceful - she could probably find herself a window to climb through or something. Taking a deep breath to compose herself, Jessica adjusted her clothes before stepping over to the front door and raising her hand, knocking on it a few times. She mentally rehearsed her lines, trying to keep her poker face while waiting for the man she hated the most in the world to greet her. She was prepared to be met warmly. She was ready for a conflict. She knew how to handle indifference. The only thing she was entirely unprepared for… Was to be left waiting.

  
Ten seconds passed. And then twenty. Thirty. Jessica knocked again, this time more loudly and insistently. Could he not have heard her?  
“Kilgrave? It’s me. It’s Jessica,” she spoke up.  
Nothing. Not a sound. Had he realized that this was a trap? It was entirely possible that she had vastly underestimated her opponent… The girl shuddered, hugging herself. The snowfall had stopped last night, not too long after they left the diner, but it was still unbelievably cold, and staying outside for an extended period of time wasn’t exactly the most pleasant sensation. The fact that she was afraid her ‘brother’ might have become aware of her plan, and that she’d just sent her best friend into danger, most certainly wasn’t helping.  
“Kilgrave!” Jessica yelled out again, knocking on the door. “I just want to talk. Please!” She begged him, hoping to sound convincing enough.

  
It took another minute or so for the door to finally open… Revealing none other than Patsy herself. Jessica sighed, knowing exactly what this meant.  
“Jess… They’re gone,” the redhead spoke.  
That made sense. If Kilgrave had the foresight to shut down Wasp’s phone, he probably figured out that they would be able to track him through it. Of course… Things were never easy when it came to him. Still, it didn’t matter. Jessica was always good at tracking people down - that was her job, after all. Silently, the girl stepped into the house and walked past her friend, examining her surroundings. Much to her surprise, the place had been untouched. It was cleaned and well-taken care of (obviously not by Kilgrave himself - teenage boys weren’t exactly known for looking after themselves, but if she had to guess, he probably mind controlled someone else into doing it for him), but otherwise, it was exactly like she’d left it five years ago. Not an object was moved out of its way, not a picture was removed from its frame. Hell, even the plants were exactly as they used to be… Or at the very least, had been replaced with newer ones from the same species, in the same pots. It was eerie, bordering on horrifying. Just what was Kilgrave trying to accomplish with this? Was he hoping to impress her? To make her grateful? Or was it just some kind of ill-thought out attempt to continue living in the past?

  
“You okay?” Patsy asked, looking to her friend.  
“Yeah,” Jessica nodded. “Let’s just get this over with. I don’t want to be here any longer than I need to.”  
“Alright… What are we looking for?”  
“Addresses, photos, phone numbers, brochures, personal cards… Anything and everything that could possibly give us a clue about where they’ve gone,” the black-haired girl spoke. It was a slim chance that they’d find anything, but it was worth a shot. With Patsy taking over the living room, Jessica moved over to the kitchen, looking everything over. Their house was big, with four rooms on the first floor and three rooms on the second one, without counting the bathrooms and the attic… It was going to take a while for them to look through everything, but what choice did they have? And so, the girl began looking. She opened every drawer, checked in every cupboard, looked under the table, reached into the various slits to check if anything had fallen in… Nothing. All she found were memories she’d suppressed for five years. About half an hour later, the only thing left in the room that she hadn’t checked was the trash bin, which was full of Chinese take-out boxes. Jessica wasn’t looking forward to this, but what choice did she have? Getting down on her knees, she promptly reached into the bin and began pulling the items from inside, placing them on the tiles nearby one by one. They were greasy, with remnants of lukewarm food all over them, and the worst part was that Jessica was also pretty sure this would all amount to nothing. She ultimately retrieved three boxes of take-out - way too much for someone as skinny as Kilgrave. Did Wasp share a meal with him? He’d probably made her, the way he used to make Jessica have dinner with him… The faint memory made her even sicker than she already was. Underneath the boxes were a whole bunch of spilled noodles - someone hadn’t finished their meal.

  
“Oh, God…” She sighed. Well, it could’ve been worse. Jessica reminded herself of the scene in ‘Silent Hill 2’ where the main character had to reach into the toilet in order to pull out a safe combination. The cold, greasy noodles felt utterly disgusting against her bare hand, and for a moment, the girl regretted not checking under the sink to see if there were any gloves available. Still, it was a bit too late for that. She made a face as she felt the soy sauce running through her fingers on the bottom of the bin… This was it. This had all been for nothing. There was nothing else inside.

  
And then, she felt it. Just as she was pulling her hand out, Jessica’s fingertip brushed against a piece of paper. At first she assumed it was some kind of napkin, but that seemed improbable, considering just how hard it was. It definitely felt like a piece of ordinary A4 paper that had been crumpled up and thrown away… Jessica closed her eyes, making her way past the noodles before grabbing the piece of paper and pulling it out, uncrumpling it and taking a close look at it. It looked like some kind of diagram, with lots of squares and arrows, but without names or clues it was pretty useless. And besides, why would Kilgrave leave a map to the place where he was taking Wasp away from Jessica… In a place that Jessica was undoubtedly going to find? It just didn’t make any sense. Was he leading her into a trap? He could’ve set the trap there. No, this was something else, but whether it was important or not was anyone’s guess.  
“Patsy!” Jess yelled out. A few moments later, her friend showed up at the door.  
“You found something?” She asked. Jessica showed her the diagram, which the redhead reluctantly picked up. She didn’t exactly want to pick up something so greasy and disgusting, but her friend had done her part...  
“What do you think this is?” Patsy looked at her.  
“I was hoping you could help me out… At this point, it could be anything from the floor plan of a house to a Tetris walkthrough,” she sighed.  
The redhead stared at the squares, rectangles, lines and figures on the greasy sheet of paper. Something about it seemed awfully familiar, but… She just couldn’t put her finger on it.

  
“Wait a second…” Patsy spoke, taking the paper and gently tracing one of the rectangles with her hand. She moved down, following it, tracking the intersections… Jessica caught on.  
“It’s a map…” She muttered.  
“Not just any map! I know this place!” Patsy proclaimed proudly. “This road right here? The long one? Higgins Drive. I used to come running here every day when I was a kid. The intersections up here and down here match. If we continue down here, we’ll eventually reach Birch Street and our houses.”  
Jessica stared at the map. It was very crudely drawn, but… It made sense. The intersections were way too specific for it to be a coincidence.  
“Didn’t you find Kilgrave somewhere on Higgins Drive?” The investigator asked.  
“Yeah, I think so… Is that important?”  
Jessica didn’t need to ask anything else. Kilgrave did mention that he had found a lab in New York… Could it be that it was the one where he was created? If that was the case, maybe he hadn’t taken Wasp to another location to hide her after all. Maybe the two had gone to that lab.  
“The two are there. They’ve got to be,” Jessica pointed at the area surrounded by arrows, as if Kilgrave was planning some kind of elaborate attack on it.  
“Why would they be there? There’s nothing there! It’s just houses and stuff!” Patsy implored, but Jessica was certain of it. Her detective’s instinct never failed her, and there was plenty of evidence to suggest that she was right. They had to be there. With a confident step, the girl walked towards the car.  
“Um, Jess?” The redhead called again.  
“I’m telling you, they’re there!” Jessica insisted.  
“No… Your hands…” Patsy pointed. The detective looked down, noticing her greasy, soy sauce-covered hands. The dramatic march towards the car was going to have to wait for just a tiny bit.

## 


	10. 4 Higgins Drive

Kilgrave couldn’t help but take one last look at himself in the side view mirror as he parked the car opposite the laboratory. He’d heard that Wasp was a master seamstress, that was one of the things that had made her popular on social media in the first place… But he’d never expected this level of craftsmanship! His two-piece purple suit looked phenomenal, exactly like something that you’d need to spend thousands at a tailor to get! Honestly, it was hard to believe that Wasp had achieved this over a single night, with only some five year old cloth which, while of a rather high quality, was originally meant for curtains. It seemed downright impossible, and Kilgrave would’ve never believed it if he hadn’t seen the costume come together out of nothing with his own eyes. The girl sitting next to him was truly something, wasn’t she? And judging by the spark in her eyes and her confident smirk, she knew it too.

  
Still, as much as he wanted to, the young man knew he couldn’t just stay there and admire this forever. After shutting the ignition off, he walked out of the car and crossed the street, with Wasp in tow. 4 Higgins Drive, the address of the place where he had escaped from eight years ago, led to a completely ordinary house. It was honestly the perfect cover for an illegal secret laboratory smack-dab in the middle of New York’s suburbs - nobody suspected that a thing was out of place when almost the exact same house had been copy/pasted a few dozen times over both sides of the avenue. The real laboratory was hidden deep underground, and it was exactly what you would expect… The problem was getting to it first. Knocking on the door wasn’t going to do much, since the whole place was completely empty. They needed to find another way to break in. Kilgrave tried the doorknob. Locked.

  
“Ordinarily, this is where I would’ve had Jessica break the door down, but…” He sighed. Wasp crossed her arms, not particularly liking being compared to Jessica like that.  
“Bet you ten bucks I can get the job done better!” Janet exclaimed.  
“You’re on,” Kilgrave stated.  
The girl gave him what could only be described as a pout of determination before shrinking down to the smallest size she could and flying off. He opened his mouth, intending to order her to not get too far from him, just as a precaution to ensure that she wouldn’t try to run away… But then stopped himself. She was his partner for this. If they were going to get through their ordeal, they needed to trust each other. He had to trust that she wouldn’t run off, and she had to trust that he wouldn’t order her around like he had Jessica. Clenching his fist, Kilgrave watched as the tiny, insect-sized girl flew off into the distance, surrounding the house and moving behind it. He looked around nervously, tapping his feet. She was taking too long! What in the world was she doing?

  
An older woman, maybe in her late 50s or early 60s, was walking down the other end of the street, suddenly finding herself blocked by Kilgrave’s car. She turned to him, glancing up at the man - the only one who was currently around.  
“Excuse me, is this your car?” She asked him.  
“Yes, so?” He responded, really not in the mood for petty neighborly squabbles.  
“You can’t park here!” The woman reprimanded him.  
“It’s just for five minutes.”  
“Young man, please move your car or I’ll call the police!”  
“You will not call the police! You will go about your day, you will forget you ever saw me, and you will never, ever bother anyone about their car ever again!” Kilgrave yelled, losing his cool. The woman merely nodded, walking around the vehicle and continuing down on her way as if nothing had happened. Kilgrave exhaled. He’d hoped that yelling at someone would make him less nervous, but somehow, it had only increased his anger and anxiety.

  
It took a few more excruciating seconds until he heard the door click loudly before opening, revealing the Wasp on the other side, now fully grown. Kilgrave sighed loudly, relieved. So she hadn’t abandoned him.  
“Ta-daa! You owe me ten bucks,” she smirked.  
“I left my wallet in my other purple suit,” the man chuckled.  
“Hey… Everything alright? You look a little pale,” Janet stepped towards him.  
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just… I don’t know, a bit anxious about what we’re going to find down there,” he lied.  
“Well, hopefully a whole lot of people who need saving!” Wasp pumped her fist. “Come on!”  
Kilgrave smirked, mostly to himself. Why was he ever worried in the first place?

  
He stepped inside the house and closed the door, examining his surroundings. Very little had changed in the last eight years, as the place still looked pretty much exactly like a normal house, inside and out. Nobody who ever came by would ever suspect the secrets it held.  
“Okay, so how do we get to the lab? Is there, like, a secret elevator? Please tell me there’s a secret elevator!”  
“As a matter of fact, there is,” the man spoke, causing her to squeal loudly. Riding a secret elevator to the underground base of an evil genius was, after all, one of the items on her long and rather odd bucket list. “I’m just not entirely sure how to get there.”  
“Well, when in doubt, trip security and interrogate the guards! Always works!” Janet smirked, shrinking down and flying towards the most sophisticated panel she could find on the wall before blasting it open. If their unauthorized entrance hadn’t alerted the guards, this was certainly going to grab their attention. And, just like predicted, only about thirty seconds later, a wall panel slid open to reveal four intimidating-looking men in blue uniforms armed with machine guns pointed straight at the intruders. Kilgrave turned to Wasp, giving her a ‘not bad’ face. Thus far she’d proven to be a whole lot more useful than he suspected!  
“On the ground! Down on the ground now!” One of the guards yelled as the troops began surrounding the intruders. “Hands behind your head! Right now!”  
“Oh, slow down, Captain Planet!” Kilgrave spoke dismissively. “At ease! All of you!”  
Immediately, the guards stopped moving, pulling their weapons away and awaiting orders from their new commander.  
“Tell me, is this the entrance to the laboratory?” He asked, pointing at the room from which the soldiers had emerged.  
“Sir, yes, sir! It’s the elevator to the basement floor, sir!” One of them responded.  
“Excellent. Guard that elevator and don’t let anyone but me and my companion through unless I say otherwise. Got it?”  
“Sir, yes, sir!”

  
And with that, the guards assumed defensive positions around the elevator as Kilgrave and Wasp casually walked inside. The small room was practically empty, apparently operated by motion sensors. The moment the two of them entered, the fake wall slid back down and the elevator began moving towards the basement. Wasp exhaled, her voice shaky.  
“I can’t believe I’m doing this! This… This is just… Wow!”  
“Calm down, we’re not out of the woods yet. The best is yet to come,” he reminded her.  
Wasp took a deep breath, trying to calm down her shaking body. As utterly amazing and exhilarating as this felt, she knew she had to keep her head in the game in order to do what they’d come there for, and, well… Not die or get captured in the process. The thought occurred to her that if the bad guys found a way to block the elevator, and Kilgrave was unable to convince the guards to let them go, she’d be stuck in a place that specialized in performing painful experiments on metahumans, and none of her friends would even suspect she was missing… It was a pretty terrifying thing to consider, but for the time being, she was just going to have to put her faith in her partner and hope that things turned out okay.

  
As the elevator came to a halt about thirty seconds later, the doors opened to reveal a white, sterile main hall, almost like a particularly clean, high-tech hospital. It was definitely like something you’d see in a movie or a videogame - it kind of reminded Wasp of the Umbrella lab from the very first “Resident Evil” movie. Men and women in light-blue, futuristic-looking uniforms marched around, some talking with each other, others staring at tablets in their hands. When the elevator doors opened, all eyes were on the intruders. From the looks on their faces, it didn’t even seem like the scientists knew that they had been invaded in the first place. Kilgrave’s face soured into a scowl as memories flooded his mind. People in those very same uniforms, in this very same place, were responsible for the worst years of his life. If it weren’t for them, who knew how he could’ve turned out. Sure, maybe he would’ve never met Jessica, and he would’ve never had these powers, but… He would’ve been a normal kid. He would’ve gone to school, had his first kiss, eventually gone to college… He could’ve been happy. He could still do those things by using his powers, but… It just wasn’t the same. It wasn’t something he’d ever consider. Kilgrave grit his teeth, his mind filling up with anger over the things that could have been. A moment later, he felt a hand gently wrap itself against his arm. The young man turned to his side, noticing Wasp by his side. She gave him a kind smile. “I’m here, I won’t let them hurt you,” her expression said without words. He smiled back at her. Kilgrave couldn’t change his past. He couldn’t change who he was, nor could he erase the mistakes he’d done. All he could do was move forward, and try to do better. And even if he hadn’t exactly been dealt the best hand in life… He could still make it work, if he was lucky. But other things had to come first.

  
“Right,” he turned to the scientists staring at him. “I want every single one of you out into the staff room. Get in there, and don’t go out for another hour,” he ordered them. With a nod, the men and women turned around, marching off down the hallway and entering a door in the back. Wasp chuckled, stepping forward and looking around.  
“I can’t believe this, but things actually seem to be going according to plan!” She exclaimed.  
Less than a minute later, several heavily armored guards ran through another door, pointing weapons that would make even the Punisher jealous. The laboratory’s private security had spared no expense when it came to their equipment - their vests could stop a high-caliber bullet from close range, their armor’s light weight gave them mobility and flexibility, their outfits were completely sealed off and designed to prevent the person inside from anything from drowning to heavy doses of radiation, the oxygen tanks neatly concealed in bulletproof pouches on their backs ensuring that they could survive the release of any kind of poisonous gasses, and worst of all, the helmets on their heads completely cut them off from the outside world, with their only communications occurring through lenses and microphones.  
“Oh, crap…” Kilgrave muttered.  
“Surrender now! This is your one warning!” One of the guards yelled in his synthesized voice as all of them pointed their weapons at the pair.  
“Shouldn’t you, like, order them to stand down?” Janet asked.  
“My powers don’t work through technology… I need to be heard directly,” he admitted.  
“Okay… What now?”  
As the guards removed the safety of their weapons with a very audible click, Kilgrave grabbed Janet’s hand, whispered “Run!” and promptly dragged her through the nearest door as a hail of heavy bullets practically tore their last location apart. As the door closed on the inside, Janet promptly shrunk down and destroyed the panel controlling it, which would, hopefully, buy them at least a little bit of time.

  
“I should’ve known they’ve upped their security…” Kilgrave lamented as he continued to run down the hall, with Wasp flying next to him. It was a stupid oversight… How didn’t he figure this out? It seemed so obvious in retrospect! Just a few moments later, the supposedly blocked door was kicked down, and more bullets began flying over their heads.  
“Ah! Stop this right now! I command you!” Janet screamed.  
“How is this going to work?!” Kilgrave yelled.  
“I had to try!” She admitted as the two made another turn. They were en route to the holding cells, but without finding a way to deal with the guards first, all they were going to do was put the prisoners in danger. But how in the world were they supposed to do that?  
“Any brilliant plans besides trying to copy my powers?” The young man turned to his partner, trying very hard not to run out of stamina.  
“I don’t know! You’re the one who broke into all of these places! How did you deal with the guards there?”  
“It was all Jessica! She’s super strong, she could take down these clowns in an instant! This would’ve been so much easier with a superhuman here!” Kilgrave lamented.  
“Dude, we’re literally in a place full of metahumans! One of them’s bound to be super strong!” Wasp exclaimed.

  
The man thought about it. That… Actually did make sense. Sure, most of the prisoners in this place were probably not going to be much help… But Jessica had been a prisoner of a place just like this once. That meant that they had the technology to give super strength to people. They only needed to find a prisoner with the same powers!  
“Wasp, I could kiss you!” He grinned. In spite of their pursuers, or maybe because of them, the two were actually pretty close to the holding cells now. It was only by pure luck that they hadn’t been shot yet, or encountered more than the occasional scientist doing rounds on the way there, but they’d actually made it. As Wasp once again deadlocked the door, the two had only a few precious seconds to get themselves a superhuman. On each side of the hallway they were in were about half a dozen holding cells, each with a small window on the door for observation of the prisoner.  
“You take left, I take right?” Kilgrave suggested.  
“Got it!” Wasp nodded, the pair splitting up as the guards began slamming against the steel door, trying to break it down. In the first cell the young man peeked in was a young girl, maybe about 17 or 18 years old, with short, pixie-cut style black hair. She appeared to be dressed in nothing more than a thin hospital gown - an outfit that was all too familiar to Kilgrave - and was sitting cross-legged on the bed, reading a book. She probably wasn’t going to do. In the next cell was a young Latino man, around the same age as the girl, lying on the bed and relaxing - which, really, was one of the few things you could do in such a spartan environment. He likely wasn’t a good pick either. Kilgrave glanced at the door, which was starting to give out under the slams of the soldiers. Another few hits, and it was going to come down. They had but seconds. Wasp didn’t appear to be doing much better in the selection - she was still on her second cell, obviously feeling bad about being unable to help out everyone just yet, but also knowing that whoever she helped first could mean the difference between life and death. Kilgrave sighed. He knew that feeling all too well. Quickly, he moved over to the next cell… And grinned.

  
“Janet! Over here!” He yelled out. Wasp immediately flew over to his side, glancing into the window. Inside was a man that could only be described as a giant - despite his sitting posture, Kilgrave had no doubt that the man would be easily towering over him if he stood up. Most interestingly, his skin… No, his entire body seemed to be made of some kind of red metal, as if someone had stuck the head of the Red Skull on Red Hulk’s body and covered that in titanium, which was also red. The guy seemed practically indestructible, and even if Kilgrave was pretty sure the high caliber bullets the guards had would still be able to hurt him, he was their best bet.  
“I think that’s our guy!” Janet exclaimed.  
“That’s definitely our guy,” Kilgrave agreed. “Think you can bust him open?”  
“Shouldn’t be too hard…” She spoke, flying up to the lock on the side of his cell and blasting it with an energy bolt, causing the mechanism to pop open and expose the wires. “Seems pretty primitive, honestly… It’s all about sending the right electrical signal to--”  
Kilgrave had no time to question exactly how Wasp knew so much about breaking open locks, or electrical signals, or anything of the sorts, as just then the door was finally broken down and the soldiers flooded in, their weapons pointed straight at him.  
“How long is this going to take?” He whispered.  
“A few seconds…” The tiny girl muttered, playing around with the wires.  
Kilgrave sighed, adjusting his tie and stepping towards the guards slowly, his hands high up in the air.  
“Gentlemen, I would like to submit my unconditional surrender!” He announced. “Eight years ago I escaped from this very laboratory, and I thought I could return and--”  
“Where’s the girl?” One of the soldiers yelled out, being unable to see the miniaturized Janet from his position.  
“A girl? What girl?”  
“Don’t play dumb! There was a girl with you when we spotted you in the hallway! Where is she?!”  
“I swear, I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about. You sure you’re getting enough oxygen in those things?”

  
Just then, the door of the red guy’s cell slid open. The metal man turned towards Wasp, glancing at her with a confused expression in his large, unblinking eyes.  
“Huh? What is…”  
“Escape! Now! Bad guys in need of whooping!” Janet spoke, pointing towards the guards.  
“Got it, dude!” The man spoke, and despite the fact that he didn’t have any lips, the girl could swear that he almost smiled at her. He practically stormed out of his cell, making a turn and running straight past Kilgrave before slamming directly into the guards, sending them all down on the ground like kegs. The one who had taken the full impact of his punch was down for the count. The others were quickly getting up.  
“Their helmets! Remove the helmets!” Kilgrave ordered. Almost immediately, the metal man popped the nearest guard’s helmet off as the others opened fire on their attacker. The bullets seemed to annoy him, maybe even hurt him, but they most certainly didn’t damage him.  
“You! Go in the corner and stay there for an hour!” The young man turned to the helmetless guard, who promptly nodded and walked off to obey the command. Meanwhile, Wasp was busily freeing the rest of the inmates in order. First up was the Latino man, whose cell was popped open within seconds - now that she knew what she was doing, Janet could get the job done a whole lot faster.  
“Escape!” Was the only thing she spoke before flying out towards the next cell.  
“Finally!” The man grinned, promptly running out of his cell and getting on all fours down on the floor. A moment later, his body began changing… Growing. His legs became longer and scalier, ending in elephant-like stumps as opposed to human digits. His body became covered in heavy armored plates, becoming larger and tearing through his gown, which fell down on the ground like a useless piece of cloth. Hell, he even grew a long tail, with what appeared to be a hammer on its end. Soon enough, what was once a man had been fully transformed into a dinosaur - an Euoplocephalus, for those savvy enough to recognize the breed. Admittedly, it was a smaller version of the dinosaur that roamed the Earth 70 million years ago, but it was more than enough to help his fellow prisoner out with the guards.

  
When the reinforcements came, Janet was already well on her way to unlocking the third door - the one containing the pixie-cut girl. She required no explanation. All she did was walk up to two of the knocked-out guards, pull out their metal batons, and then join the fight without as much as a word or a look towards her savior. Surprisingly, in a battle fought by heavily armed soldiers, a metal man and a dinosaur, this completely ordinary girl using what were essentially a pair of sticks somehow seemed to Kilgrave like the most formidable opponent of them all. There was just something about her fighting style that threw him off completely. Unlike her companions, the short-haired girl didn’t fight to win. She fought to move on, as if the guards in her way were but a mere distraction towards a bigger goal. He supposed that, in a way, they were, but for whatever reason her silent demeanor unnerved even him. Still, it wasn’t worth thinking about too much. Before too long, two more people had joined the fight - a girl that could transform herself into gas, and as such used her power for misdirection, and a guy who could shoot lightning, knocking the guards out. A few of the enemies ended up lacking their helmets, with Kilgrave sending them to the corner, but at the end of the day, when reinforcements finally stopped coming, most guards were lying on the ground, unconscious. At that point, there was just one cell left unopened, as it had a double door with a more sophisticated lock than the others, for whatever reason.  
“You guys,” Kilgrave turned towards the freed prisoners. “Head towards the elevator and make sure it’s secure! We’ll be coming with you in a second! Don’t leave without us!” He ordered them before joining Janet in front of the last cell. The first door had already been opened, and the tiny girl was currently struggling with the second lock.  
“How’s it going?” He asked her.  
“Just a little bit more…” She assured him.

  
A moment later, a young girl’s face appeared on the second door’s window. She was Asian, most likely Japanese, around the same age as the other prisoners there.  
“What… What is this?” She asked, oblivious to the chaos that had occurred outside of her cell, probably because of the extra protection around it.  
“What do you think? We’re breaking you out,” Kilgrave spoke calmly.  
“Wait, you can’t!” The girl practically screamed. “You can’t open this cell! I’m radioactive!”  
“Say again?!” Wasp exclaimed.  
“I’m like a nuclear reactor! This room is full of radiation! You can’t open it!” She implored.  
“Well, that certainly puts us in a bind…” The man sighed, glancing at his partner.  
“We’re not leaving her!” Janet insisted, growing to full size and placing her hands on her hips. “We’re rescuing everybody! That was the deal! You agreed!”  
“Okay, well, how do you suggest we get her out of here without giving ourselves cancer?” He asked.  
Wasp sighed, looking around. There had to be something that could help them… Right? There had to be something around there that could stop the radiation from leaking out… And then, as she glanced at the soldiers beaten down on the floor, it suddenly hit her.  
“Their suits!” Janet pointed at the defeated enemies. “If we wear them, we’d be safe against the radiation!”  
Kilgrave crossed his arms. The sentiment behind the idea wasn’t bad, but…  
“Wouldn’t it be better if we just make her wear one?” He asked.  
“Oh, right!” The girl chuckled, turning towards the prisoner. “Are you okay with that?”  
“It’s not like I’ve got a choice…” She shrugged.

  
“Alright, well, how about you help Hazmat here put on her suit while I go and track down the database?” Kilgrave asked. “I should also probably try and find the security room, since the elevator has most likely been locked out by now.”  
Janet nodded. She’d almost forgotten that the whole purpose of this mission wasn’t to rescue the prisoners - it was to discover Kilgrave’s origins. The rescue op had been nothing more than objective B, which they’d only done because she’d asked. He could’ve so easily just mind-controlled her into following along with his original plan, and thus avoiding the danger and chaos of the last 15 minutes altogether… And yet he hadn’t. He had fulfilled her request just because she’d asked, and because, deep down, he knew it was the right thing to do. The thought made her feel a little bit warmer on the inside.  
“Be careful, okay?” Wasp smiled at the young man before gently wrapping his arms around him. Kilgrave gasped ever so quietly, the sudden embrace catching him completely by surprise, but he returned it, finding it to feel rather… Nice. He genuinely couldn’t remember the last time anyone had hugged him of their own free will. Honestly, it was entirely possible that it hadn’t happened at all.  
“Always,” he smiled back at her. A few moments later, he reluctantly broke out of the embrace and turned around, walking up to one of the guards in the corner.  
“Tell me where your database and security rooms are,” he asked him.  
“Down that hall, last two doors on the right,” the soldier responded mechanically.

  
Without a word, Kilgrave left the holding cells and began making his way down the hallway, his shoes clicking loudly as he walked amongst those empty, familiar white walls. The place had changed so much over the last eight years, at least in terms of appearance, and yet its core had remained the same. It was still just as soulless as it always was. He hated it. He despised it, he despised the things that happened there, he despised everything that it stood for, he wanted it burned to the ground. The worst things that had ever happened to him or the people he cared about all happened because of places like this. He’d done his best to shut down as many of these operations as he could, mostly by telling all of the employees to destroy all of their research before getting out, forget they ever worked there and never work for a laboratory again in their lives, but it seemed like for every lab he destroyed, two more sprung up somewhere. It was a battle he couldn’t possibly win… And yet, after today, he’d have a whole lot more time and power to do it. The possibilities would be infinite.

  
Kilgrave calmly stepped into the database room, which turned out to be a relatively large space, the bulk of which was taken up by giant servers all hooked up to several computers. He took a seat next in front of one of them and turned it on. Luckily, there was no log-in or any authorization required to view the database, which made sense - no one without proper access was even supposed to be in this place, let alone at the computer. He didn’t really know how to look himself up, since he didn’t know his prisoner number and had no name until he was eight years old, when Jessica’s parents gave him the name Kevin Jones. But there was one thing he could look up. One name that stuck in his mind. One person who had thoroughly ruined his life over and over and over again, from early childhood all the way up until the present. Every horrible thing that had ever happened to him could be traced back to this man. Kilgrave narrowed his eyes as he clicked on the search bar and typed ‘Jonathan Witter’ into it. The results came up almost immediately - hundreds, if not thousands of videos, documents, studies and reports. The guy had his fingers in all sorts of pies. According to the folder names, there hardly seemed to be an experiment in which the guy wasn’t involved. Project Cyttorak. Project Warwolf. Project Arachnis. Project Pegasus. Project Infinity. Dozens upon dozens of folders, all of which likely meant that a different child had been tormented. It made Kilgrave sick that just one man was capable of so much evil. He organized the information by date, then looked through the files dated at around 8 years ago. There weren’t really that many from that time, so he picked one at random and double-clicked on it. A second later, a video loaded to reveal a terrifying image.

  
Kilgrave, around 7 or 8 years old at the time, was strapped down to a gurney, his left eye being pried open by uncomfortable-looking metal pincers while his head was held steady by some sort of mechanical vice. The little boy was obviously terrified, tears streaming down his cheeks, his small body shaking against its restraints. The dark-skinned man in front of him didn’t seem particularly concerned with that, though. He turned to the camera calmly, his voice even and clear, like he was narrating a documentary.  
“We will now begin the procedure to reduce the aneurysm in the subject’s Broca’s Area. This is the third procedure we’ve attempted, and while the first two were not successful, I’m confident this is the breakthrough we’ve needed,” Dr. Witter explained as his gloved hands calmly reached over to a long, thin needle lying on the examination tray before picking it up. Upon spotting it, the little boy shook in his seat.  
“No! No, please! Stop! Stop!!!” He begged, but it was no use. Whatever the doctor had done to him, he’d always been immune to Kilgrave’s commands. Gently moving the needle towards his open eye, the doctor slid it underneath the boy’s eyelid and began pushing in with a professional efficiency that only someone like him could possibly possess. A blood-curdling scream echoed from the speakers of the computer.

  
Kilgrave clicked the video off.

  
Tears were running down his cheeks as painful, horrible memories flooded his mind. He couldn’t do it. He thought he could sit here and watch this, come up with some kind of solution on his own, but he couldn’t. It was just too much. He swore under breath, really wishing that Wasp was there for him at that moment. Maybe he could’ve done this if he had someone by his side to hold his hand, but… He just couldn’t handle this alone. And honestly, he wasn’t entirely sure if he could put the girl he’d grown so fond of through this either. Kilgrave knew that if he wanted to get his answers, he needed to hear them straight from the horse’s mouth. And as painful as an encounter with this man was going to be, it was definitely preferable to watching his own torture porn in an attempt to find something that may or may not even be there. He clicked on the most recent file - a text document. Apparently, Jonathan Witter quit his job roughly five years ago, but the laboratory still kept tabs on him just in case he ever decided to start a leak. His last known address wasn’t too far from there - he was still in New York, at the very least. Seemed like he was long overdue for a visit.

## 


	11. Jonathan Witter's Home

As always, Jessica had been late. Not way too late - but late enough. When she and Patsy arrived at the laboratory on Higgins Drive, Kilgrave had only just left it - honestly, it wouldn’t have surprised Jessica if they’d passed his car on the way there. The entire laboratory was a complete mess. She had to fight a couple of mind-controlled guards in order to get to the elevator, but other than that, once she got inside the complex itself, everyone was either cowering or unconscious. It appeared that Kilgrave had released all of the prisoners and used them as a distraction in order to get access to the computers, which seemed like the lowest thing you could possibly do. What kind of person would willingly put innocent lives in danger just to further his own goals? The same kind of person that thinks controlling someone like a marionette for months is perfectly acceptable. The whole scene just made Jessica even more spiteful. She had to stop this man, no matter what. If she didn’t, who knew how much more destruction he’d leave in his wake.

  
Thankfully, if there was any positive to Kilgrave’s carnage, it was that she managed to reach the computers completely undisturbed. From there, she was able to access the recent searches on the only computer that was on, and from there pretty easily deduced the man’s next destination - child’s play, compared to the hoops she had to jump through in order to get to the lab. The last file Kilgrave had accessed was one detailing the personal dossier of one Dr. Jonathan Witter, a man Jessica easily recognized as the same person who had arrived in their home on that fateful day five years ago, when everything went to hell. It wasn’t hard to figure out why Kilgrave would want to meet the guy - some twisted need for revenge, or closure, or whatever it was that went through his messed up brain. In any case, Jessica knew she had to stop him. Practically running back towards the car alongside Patsy, she gave her best friend the address and hoped that they weren’t too late. And, much to her surprise, it didn’t seem that way.

  
Jonathan Witter lived in a modest house in Harlem, a bit smaller than the one Jessica herself had grown up in. It looked well-maintained, but it wasn’t exactly very impressive-looking - the good doctor either hadn’t saved too much for retirement or liked to keep a low profile, or maybe both. The place wasn’t too central, but it was still very much in the city, which provided the perfect location, allowing it to be clearly visible and monitored by the neighbors while still remaining relatively inconspicuous. It was definitely going to be difficult to pick a bone with someone living there, even with mind control powers, which may have been why Kilgrave had decided to give up for the time being. If he wasn’t let it, he had no choice but to come up with a better plan, since breaking down the door in broad daylight wasn’t exactly the brightest idea, especially in Harlem. Of course, there was always the chance that Kilgrave had arrived, killed Dr. Witter and left, but that seemed unlikely, especially considering how he liked to make his presence very known wherever he went. Maybe, just maybe, this time they managed to be on top of him.

  
“You should stay here. Keep a lookout for Kilgrave,” Jessica spoke to Patsy as she walked up the stairs towards the front door of the house.  
“No way. I’m going with you. You don’t know what the guy’s like,” the redhead insisted.  
“I’m sure I can handle some old man!”  
“I don’t care. I’m not leaving you alone. Not right now,” Patsy said, looking straight into Jessica’s eyes. The dark-haired girl sighed. Her best friend had a point… Maybe she wasn’t stable enough to be left alone for something like this. The last 24 hours had been an absolute nightmare, she hadn’t had a wink of sleep, she was exhausted and irritable, and honestly, she knew in her heart of hearts that she was probably going to lash out at Dr. Witter and break him in half the moment he said something wrong, which he was likely going to because he was essentially a modern Dr. Mengele who took joy in torturing kids and tearing families apart.  
“Okay,” Jessica nodded. “Just… Please keep an eye out for Kilgrave.”  
“I’m sure that we’d both know it if he showed up,” Patsy assured her.  
And with that, the detective turned around, took a deep breath and pressed her finger against the doorbell gently for a few seconds.

  
A moment later, the door opened to reveal a young girl, not a day older than 15 or 16. She was white, with long, brown hair, large blue eyes and dressed in a blue T-shirt adorned with Captain America’s shield on it and red jean shorts. Most interestingly, despite looking rather out of place considering her outfit, the girl seemed to be wearing black gloves on her hands, the type designed to look fashionable rather than keep you warm in any way. The moment she spotted Jessica and Patsy, the girl’s eyes widened and she took a step back, like she’d just been visited by the ghost of Elvis Presley possessing the reanimated body of Kurt Cobain.  
“Ooooooooooh my God! Oh my God!” She yelped out, pointing a finger at the redhead. “You’re… You’re… Oh my God! Hi! I’m-I’m-I’m-I’m Charlie. I mean, I’m Charlotte, but my friends call me Charlie, and, um, so does my dad, so, uh, well, y’know, I guess what I’m trying to say is you can call me that too! I’m rambling, aren’t I? I always ramble when I’m nervous! And I’m very nervous. Practically sweating bullets here, which is, um… Very, very embarrassing…”  
Jessica sighed, giving her best friend a look. That girl was just going to keep on babbling unless someone said something, and this was Patsy’s one and only chance to diffuse the situation nicely before Jessica did something… Well, like herself.  
“So, um… I take it you’re a fan?” Patsy interrupted.  
“Are you kidding? I’m, like, the biggest fan ever! I’ve watched all five seasons of ‘It’s Patsy’ on Netflix, twice! Right now I’m trying to complete my collection of vintage comic books, I mean, I’ve got the Patsy collected volumes, but tracking down the individual issues has been increasingly difficult! For whatever reason they’re pretty rare these days, so-- Wait. Not that I mind, quite the opposite, and trust me, last thing I want is to sound rude, but… What are you guys doing here?”

  
Jessica exhaled. Finally, getting to the point. It felt excruciating getting there.  
“We’re here to see Dr. Jonathan Witter. He lives here, right?” She asked, sincerely hoping that they didn’t have to deal with the most annoying creature in the history of the cosmos for nothing.  
“Ooooh… You too, huh? Yeah, that’s my dad, but, uh… I’m not sure if he’s up for it. Some guy in a purple suit just came in and wanted to see him. I don’t think it went well,” Charlie explained.  
The dark-haired girl grit her teeth. Kilgrave. They were too late after all.  
“Did the guy hurt him?” Patsy asked. The teenager shook her head.  
“Not really, but I heard yelling. My dad has a weak heart, he’s not really able to handle a whole lot of stress these days. I told him to rest up for today, and I’m not sure he’s ready for another visit just yet.”  
“I just need five minutes with him. I promise I’ll be careful,” Jessica spoke.  
“Hmm, I don’t know… I do feel terrible saying no to Patsy Walker, but can’t it really wait until tomorrow? I mean…”  
“A friend of mine is in danger, Charlie, and I really, really need to find the man in the purple suit in order to save her. As soon as possible,” the detective implored, pointing at the Captain America shield on the younger girl’s T-shirt. “The fact that you’re wearing this symbol means that you believe in heroes. So please… Help me do one heroic thing in my life and rescue my friend. I’ve got no other leads here.”  
Charlotte looked down, the cogs in her mind turning as she considered the situation.  
“Let me go talk to him, okay?” She gave them a faint smile. “What’s your name?”  
“Jessica Jones,” the detective spoke.

  
And with that, Charlotte patted down to a room in the back of the hallway and peek inside, keeping her head in for about ten seconds before closing the door behind her and returning to her guests.  
“He’s going to see you,” she nodded. “But please go easy on him! He’s not feeling well!”  
Jessica nodded. She was certainly going to try, at least, but she didn’t know if she could make any kind of promise. This man certainly didn’t deserve to have anyone go easy on him. With a slow, yet confident step, the young woman walked up towards the door and opened it, promptly leaving Patsy and Charlotte by themselves in the hallway.  
“Well… Wanna go sign those comic books while we wait?” The redhead turned to her.  
“And you ask?! My room’s upstairs!” Charlie exclaimed happily, leading her favorite actress towards her living quarters.  
“I do wonder… Do you really like the show that much? I mean… I don’t think it was very good. It was mostly made for money, you know…” Patsy said casually.  
“Honestly, that’s part of its appeal. Nothing about that show works on any kind of fundamental level. The writing is terrible, the characters never act like real people, the special effects are laughable… It’s just a series of mistakes and bad decisions that join together to create an amalgamation of repellency! How can you not love it?”  
“Wait, so you just like it because it’s so bad it’s good?” The redhead raised an eyebrow, wondering just what kind of fifteen year old used words like ‘amalgamation of repellency’.  
“Nope, I like it because it’s so bad it’s fantastic. It kind of goes all the way around,” Charlie spoke. “I mean, I don’t mockingly love it, I genuinely love it, promise! Just, um… Maybe for different reasons than people used to love it?”  
“Right…” Patsy sighed. She didn’t know what she was expecting.

  
When Jessica opened the door of Dr. Witter’s room, the first thing she did was peek carefully inside, as if she was worried that the man would be waiting behind the door ready to point a gun to her head. At this point, the guy could have been anything. Was he a mad, psychotic scientist? A manipulative sociopath? A family man? A senile grandpa? Just what kind of person was Jonathan Witter in the present day, anyway? Thankfully, he didn’t appear to have any ill intent towards her, at least not externally. When Jessica spotted him, the man was sitting in a recliner clad in a black cardigan, his feet in slippers. He didn’t seem to be that old - by her estimation, he was only in his early to mid 50s, but the man certainly looked like he had been completely worn out by life. Jessica stared at him… And found herself feeling nothing but pity for this evil man.  
“I’ve been wondering when you might show up,” he spoke, motioning towards a sofa opposite his chair. Reluctantly, the girl walked over to it and sat down, unzipping her jacket and sliding it off before placing it by her side. They were going to have a long conversation ahead of them.  
“You were expecting me?” She asked.  
“Of course… After all, I was the one who gave you your powers. When you escaped and became a detective, I figured it was only a matter of time before you tracked me down.”  
“Why?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Why did you give me my powers?”

  
Dr. Witter kept silent for a bit. He considered lying to Jessica, but that wouldn’t have been fair to her.  
“Because you were dying. I figured that saving you would earn me favor with Kilgrave.”  
“Not because he ordered you to?”  
“I’ve always been immune to his orders, Ms. Jones. When Kilgrave issues a command, he’s unconsciously releasing a virus that affects the Wernicke’s Area of whoever hears him, making them obey his commands. A group of core researchers and I synthesized a vaccine for the virus.”  
“So can’t you make more? That’d solve a whole lot of my problems,” Jessica crossed her arms.  
“Not without Kilgrave in captivity. I need biopsies from his brain tissue which contain the virus in order to synthesize the vaccine. Without it, it’s impossible. We don’t have any viable samples of him left.”  
The girl sighed. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy… But once they had him in a transparent cell getting those samples was going to be child’s play.

  
“So, who’s this ‘group of core researchers’? Did you just grab a couple of scientist buddies and decide to experiment on a thirteen year old girl for fun?”  
Dr. Witter shook his head.  
“We were part of a massive network of laboratories known as the Facility that had one purpose and one purpose only - building metahumans and training them. For what purpose, I can’t tell you, but we’re incredibly well funded and have laboratories all over continental America. Most of the time we specialize in creating all new metahumans through genetic splicing, but sometimes we also activate the latent superpowers in normal people. If there’s anything we can possibly do that can create new superpowered individuals, we’ve done it.”  
“And what did you do to me? Do I have a virus too?” She asked.  
“No. For you, we used an imperfect, yet more potent version of Captain America’s supersoldier serum. As you know, the original formula has been lost to time, but there have been numerous attempts to recreate it. The one we gave you was by far our most successful one. If injected into a compatible host, the solution gave them strength that way surpassed that of Captain America, enhanced speed and reflexes, enhanced cognitive ability, increased regenerative ability... “  
“And if the host was incompatible with the serum?”  
Dr. Witter kept silent for a second.  
“Severe neurological damage. Constant pain, near blindness, almost complete loss of limb control. The only viable solution afterwards is euthanasia. But without the serum you would’ve certainly died anyway, so I figured it was worth the risk.”  
“So… You’re basically telling me that whether or not I lived was decided on the flip of a coin?!” She yelled, shuddering at the thought. She couldn’t imagine something more horrifying.  
“No. The flip of a coin would imply a 50/50 chance, Ms. Jones. You had about a 10% chance of awakening with powers. You have no idea how lucky you are.”

  
Jessica exhaled, averting her eyes. She certainly didn’t feel very lucky… But that thought was promptly pushed aside by another - how did he know that there was only a 10% chance the serum worked?  
“You’re a monster,” she spat out.  
“I saved your life,” he retorted.  
“At the cost of how many others? How many had to die for your supersoldier serum? How many so you could play Dr. Frankenstein?! How many families did you destroy? How many are suffering right now because of you? Even your own daughter…”  
“You leave her out of this!” Dr. Witter demanded, his tone changing. “Ask me your questions, spew out your hatred, but don’t you dare bring Charlotte up!”  
“It’s true, isn’t it? Nobody wears gloves at home unless they’ve got something to hide, so the question is, what have you done to her hands? What will I see if I make her take her gloves off? Hell, what will I see if I make her take her shirt off? How many surgical scars have you left on her body?”  
“You need to leave. Right now,” Dr. Witter demanded.  
“Oh, I’ll leave, alright. I’ll leave and then I’ll bring the entirety of Avengers Academy right to your doorstep. You’ve seen the news reports. We have gods and we have taken down demons, and we can have your sadistic ass in a cell any time we want it.”  
The dark-skinned man stared into her eyes for five full seconds before exhaling nervously. He’d folded.  
“What do you want?”  
“You’re going to tell me what Kilgrave wanted and where he went, you’re going to swear that you’ll never touch your daughter again, and then you’re going to pray to whatever God you believe in that you never, ever see me again, because next time I’m not going to just let you go.”

  
Dr. Witter nodded quietly as Jessica sat back down in her seat, having told the guy everything she’d wanted to tell him for so long. It had gone a bit better than she’d expected. At least he hadn’t gotten a heart attack or anything.  
“Kilgrave came here to demand answers about the safeguards we placed in him… Or, more particularly, how to get rid of them,” the man began talking.  
“Safeguards?” Jessica raised an eyebrow. She… Honestly didn’t think that he had any. It certainly hadn’t seemed like it.  
“Indeed. When we managed to implant the virus into his brain, we knew that he had the potential to go rogue. Kilgrave was always created as a sort of sleeper agent. His job was to topple governments from within, to dismantle regimes without a single shot, to get close to unreachable dictators and warlords and convince them to commit suicide. And in order to send him on assignments, we had to keep him under control. As such, anything electronic was a no-go - Kilgrave had to be absolutely inconspicuous when infiltrating enemy territory. So instead we went with a biological safeguard.”  
“Biological?” Jessica asked.  
“We modified the virus in his brain slightly. Added a flaw to it. Whenever Kilgrave issued a command, there was a chance one of the virus cells would become malignant in a non-essential part of the brain.”  
“Are we talking brain cancer here?”  
“That was the intention, but ultimately, what ended up happening was closer to a brain aneurysm. Tiny cysts filled with blood within the brain which grew larger and larger with each command. The bigger the command, and the more people it was aimed at, the more the aneurysms grew. The only way to counteract the side effect was via an injection directly into the spinal cord, which negated the formation of any aneurysms.”

  
Jessica stared at Dr. Witter for several solid seconds before finding it in her herself to even process all this. Was he… Saying what she thought he was saying? Kilgrave hadn’t taken any injections since his escape eight years ago, at least not to her knowledge, and he certainly had been rather lax with his commands, so… Did that mean the aneurysms just kept on growing in his brain all this time?  
“Kilgrave is dying?” She asked.  
Dr. Witter nodded.  
“The idea was that, if he ever went rogue, his brain would self-destruct within a few years. We always thought that it might happen when he was finally sent on an assignment late into his adult life, but… We never thought he’d escape as a child. Find a family. Live a normal life.”  
“So you tried to help him…”  
“Yes. I wanted to continue his injections therapy in order to prevent any new aneurysms from forming. The injections weren’t going to magically remove any that were already there, but at that point, I assume that they would’ve been small enough to be easily removed surgically.”  
“And now?”  
“Like I told him, now it’s impossible. The aneurysms are way too big, no surgeon would ever attempt an operation like that, it’d kill the patient. Aneurysms need to be small enough to be excised… If they’re larger than a pea, there’s a huge chance they could burst during surgery and cause massive bleeding into the brain, leaving the patient brain-dead. Unless he found a way to somehow shrink his aneurysms, at this rate he’s got maybe a few weeks left at best before one of them bursts, if he’s careful with his commands.”  
“And if he doesn’t use commands at all?”  
“Then it’s anyone’s guess. Aneurysms are a funny thing. If they don’t keep growing, they could burst tomorrow, or in a year, or never. He’ll experience headaches, maybe the occasional nausea, but… That’s about it.”

  
Jessica nodded, standing up from her seat and grabbing her coat. She’d learned all she wanted to know, and she genuinely didn’t want to spend even a single second more with this old man.  
“Ms. Jones!” Dr. Witter called out for her. She turned back to him, her hand on the doorknob. “Please don’t tell Charlotte about any of this. About me, about Kilgrave… About anything. I’m just a university professor to her. That’s how I’d like to keep it.”  
“You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve her,” Jessica spat out.  
“Please. I’m begging you as a father,” he looked at her.  
The woman said nothing. Instead, she merely opened the door and walked back out into the hallway, putting her jacket back on before zipping it up.  
“Patsy!!!” She yelled out, waiting for her best friend to come downstairs so they could leave. Much to her surprise, the redhead showed up with a huge grin on her face, followed by Charlie.  
“Hey! Time to go?” She asked. Jessica nodded.  
“Aww! You should come again! You know, once you’re done with the thing.”  
“Tell you what - why don’t you swing by my place sometime? We can marathon ‘It’s Patsy’ on my 80’ TV,” the girl suggested. “I mean, sure, the SD quality’s gonna look like crap on that thing, but…”  
“Just say when and where!” Charlotte grinned, pumping a fist up in the air.  
“We don’t have time for this,” Jessica whispered to Patsy, who found herself quickly waving goodbye to Charlie before following her best friend outside.

  
“Sorry…” She chuckled, walking up to her car before entering the driver’s seat. “She’s a sweet kid, once she calms down.”  
“Right,” Jessica nodded, pulling her seatbelt down and snapping it in place.  
“So… Any clues as to where Kilgrave is? Or are we back to square one?” Patsy asked.  
The dark-haired girl rubbed her forehead with a finger. Kilgrave had been faced with an impossible choice - stop using his powers or die. This whole thing seemed like a godsend to Jessica, who could finally just convince Kilgrave to give this whole thing up and live a normal life, but she knew that would never be enough for him. But what could he do about it? Unless he found a way to miniaturize the aneurysms in order to get them surgically removed, he was basically stuck in an unwinnable situation. Then again… One place in the city just so happened to house the technology that could shrink objects down in size, as well as one of the best surgeons in the state, if not the country. Jessica wasn’t exactly a gambler, but if she were, she knew exactly where she’d be placing her bet.

## 


	12. Avengers Academy

The ride back to the Academy was silent and filled with dread. Jessica had given up on beating Kilgrave to his destination by that point - she’d failed at that far too many times. Now all she wanted to do was catch up to him and do as much damage control as possible… Which was going to be insanely difficult considering her circumstances. If Kilgrave managed to infiltrate the Academy, pretty much the only things stopping him from turning everyone into his mindless slaves were the aneurysms growing in his head. Still, even with them in place, there was likely nothing that would prevent him from issuing a single command to the students who were still around (something along the lines of “Ignore me”) and then making Hank Pym and Dr. Strange perform the surgery on him. And afterwards… He was going to be unstoppable. Literally unstoppable. He’d have the world’s most powerful army at his disposal, with nothing to prevent him from using it to exact his vengeance on those he believed had wronged him. At that moment, literally the only thing that stood between him and a global disaster was Jessica, and honestly, she wasn’t entirely sure that she was up to the task of protecting everyone. She hadn’t slept at all since the previous night, she was physically and emotionally drained, her mind was barely keeping it together… The girl was convinced that she was losing it, and the longer this horrible day went on, the less she felt like herself. She just needed things to be over so that she could take a nice, long bath and then go to sleep. But it didn’t seem like Kilgrave was interested in giving her that break if he could help it.

  
As Patsy parked her car outside in the parking lot and removed her keys from the ignition, Jessica sighed quietly and turned to her best friend.  
“You might want to stay here. If Kilgrave’s already in the Academy, things will get dangerous,” the dark-haired girl warned.  
“Are you serious? When have I ever hidden from danger?” The redhead crossed her arms. “You go, I go. We’re in this together. We have been since the beginning.”  
Jessica smiled. That was kind of the answer she was hoping to hear. It was selfish of her, of course, but… She really wanted Patsy by her side. It made her feel like she had someone to back her up, no matter what, even if in reality her friend probably wouldn’t be able to do much against someone who specialized in mind control. With a nod, the girl left the car, the redhead following closely as the two approached the main gate of the Academy. Stan the night guard usually packed up at dawn, and was replaced by Lou for the daytime shift - a large, muscular fellow that filled out his uniform quite nicely, almost like it was a size too small for him. The man was sitting on his chair, his feet up on the desk and a tablet in his palm. Jessica knocked on the glass to catch his attention, causing him to put his legs down and lean forward.  
“Hey! Mind opening the gate for me?” She asked.  
“Mind showing me your student ID?” Lou retorted. She exhaled.  
“Come on, man, you know it’s me.”  
“Yes, and I also know that you left the Academy yesterday, and that you’re not looking too great. I’d rather not take my chances.”  
“Seriously? You let the arrow guy in all the time, and he’s not a student either!” Jessica retorted.  
Thankfully, Patsy managed to interfere just in time, pulling out her own student ID and passing it over to Lou.  
“I’m a student, though, and Jessica’s my plus one. I take responsibility for her. Is that cool?” She asked with a smile. The security guard picked up the ID, examined it closely - more so that it would appear like he was doing what he was being paid to than because he needed to - and then handed it over to the redhead.  
“Stay out of trouble,” he warned them. Patsy nodded with a smile, while Jessica merely glared.

  
“I swear, I was maybe two seconds away from kicking that gate down…” The dark-haired girl complained as the two of them walked inside the Academy.  
“Relax,” Patsy reminded her, motioning towards the quad where a bunch of students were walking to their destination like ants in a colony. Peter Parker was bringing a couple of books away from the Archive to his dorm room to study before tripping on his own shoelace and ending up on his knees, his books all over the ground. Almost immediately, Kamala Khan rushed over to help him gather them back up while Enchantress stifled a chuckle. On the nearby bench, Satana and Gamora were idly chatting about something quietly, while the Hulk meditated on the ground. It… Honestly didn’t look all that different than it usually did. Avengers Academy was as chaotic, charming and beautiful as ever. Kilgrave had somehow not burned it to the ground yet. Jessica might not have even believed that he was there if it wasn’t for the fact that she could see him sitting on the sofa in front of the dorm, idly chatting with Wasp. At least the girl hadn’t been harmed yet, but who knew how badly he’d brainwashed her.  
“I’m going to try and send Wasp your way. Make sure she’s fine,” Jessica turned to Patsy, who nodded quietly. She understood perfectly well that this was a gentle way for her best friend to say ‘Please stay out of this - I need to talk to him alone’. Taking a deep breath, the dark-haired girl walked over to the sofa in front of the dorm and stood by it, making absolutely sure that her enemy could see her.

  
Kilgrave actually hadn’t spotted Jessica until she approached him - he honestly didn’t expect to see her in the Academy so soon, but he supposed it made sense that she would be here. She’d either followed his trail successfully or given up and come home - either way, she would’ve ended up there. Janet let out a small gasp when she recognized her.  
“Jess!” She yelped out before glancing awkwardly to Kilgrave. The last thing she wanted was for two people she’d grown to like to try and kill each other again.  
“You okay, Janet? He didn’t hurt you?” Jessica asked.  
“No, he hasn’t even tried! So please, don’t--”  
“I won’t. I’m not even going to touch him,” she promised. “Could you give us a few minutes alone?”  
Wasp turned to Kilgrave with concern in her eyes. He nodded.  
“It’s okay,” he assured her, trying pretty hard to let her know she was supposed to go without ordering her to do so.  
“If you need me I’ll be right here, okay?” Janet spoke to him before standing up and walking over to Patsy, who waved at her subtly. Jessica didn’t take long to assume her place.

  
“I didn’t know you could mind control someone so thoroughly in just one night,” she spat out, disgusted.  
“I didn’t mind control her. I just gave her a chance to prove herself. You should try it sometime,” Kilgrave crossed his arms defensively.  
“So you’re telling me she’s not under any orders right now? You didn’t order her to love you or some twisted shit like that?”  
“There’s no way to order someone to love you, or even to like you. Don’t you think I tried it with you? No matter how many times I tried to make you see me as a brother again after the accident, there was that look,” he pointed towards her eyes. “That look right there. Always present. All the orders in the world couldn’t make you stop hating me.”  
Jessica looked down at her feet. That made sense… Even if it made her feel disgusting to know that Kilgrave had tried to manipulate her emotions like that. Just when she thought he couldn’t possibly get any lower…  
“But I assume everyone else is under some sort of mind control, to make sure I don’t snap your neck? Like your favorite ‘Kill yourself if anything happens to me’?” The girl looked at him.  
“No. I promised Janet. The only thing they believe is that I’m her plus one, which I guess places me under at least some kind of protection. So if you’re intending on snapping my neck, you better be quick about it… The green guy over there doesn’t seem very friendly.”  
“Do you really plan to convince me that you didn’t just mind-control everyone because of some sort of promise and not because you’ll die if you use your powers too much?” Jessica crossed her arms.

  
Kilgrave blinked.  
“You spoke to Dr. Witter…”  
“Why didn’t you tell me you were dying?” She demanded.  
“Because it was none of your business. It was no one’s business but mine,” he explained.  
“If you had told me--”  
“If I’d told you, what? You would’ve helped me? You know you’d much rather let me die than ever listen to anything I have to say!”  
“You made me this way! You told me to never obey you again! You never thought that order would have consequences?”  
Kilgrave kept quiet for a while, his eyes trailing down.  
“It seemed like the right thing to do at the time… Honestly, I’m still not sure if it was.”  
Jessica swallowed.  
“Why… Why would you ever issue an order like that? What happened to make you let me go?”  
“You mean you don’t remember?” He looked at her. Jessica shook her head.  
“Those eighteen months are just a big blur to me. I think prolonged exposure to that virus of yours messed with my memory.”  
The young man opened his mouth, preparing to answer the question before deciding otherwise.  
“No. It’s better if you don’t know.”  
“You don’t get to decide that, Kilgrave! I deserve to know!” She insisted.  
“Maybe. But you don’t want to know,” he responded, standing up. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Dr. Pym is probably ready for my surgery.”

  
Jessica clasped his arm, tightening her grip.  
“Don’t go,” she spoke sharply, glaring into his dark eyes.  
“Why would I not go?” Kilgrave asked. “I know you want me to die, but--”  
“I don’t want you to die!” The girl cut him off. “I want you to live. But not like this. Not with this curse. I want you to be normal. I want you to know what it’s like to trust people to do what you ask them to not because you ordered them, but because they want to.”  
“I already experienced that. It’s a nightmare. How do you people live like this? In this… World of uncertainty,” he sighed.  
“That’s what makes the world worth living in. The uncertainty,” she assured him. “Please… Let’s talk to Dr. Pym. He can probably remove the virus from your brain, and then he can do the surgery to excise the aneurysms. You can be a normal 16 year old kid, like you were never given the chance to be!”  
Kilgrave paused. He appeared to be considering it, his eyes darting to his sides, and then down.  
“Please,” she implored him again. “There was a good person inside you, once. If Janet could see him, then he must still be there. But he’ll always be trapped as long as you have this power. You know I’m right. That’s why you didn’t mind-control anyone at the Academy today, isn’t it?”  
The young man closed his eyes, exhaling.  
“Come on, Kev,” Jessica continued. “Let’s be a family again.”

  
And suddenly, just like that, Kilgrave opened his eyes and glared at Jessica.  
“You’re lying,” he hissed at her. He had killed her parents. He had ruined her life. There was no way Jessica would ever take him back as a brother. This entire thing had been a manipulation from the start. The moment he agreed to have his powers removed, the girl was simply going to have him locked up in one of those cells scattered around the campus. And he’d almost fallen for it, too. Pulling his hand away, Kilgrave turned his back on the girl and looked back at her.  
“I’m going to have that surgery. And if you as much as try to stand in my way, I’m going to turn this entire place against you,” he spoke calmly before walking away, heading down the tiled path and in the direction of Dr. Pym’s lab.  
“Kilgrave! Kilgrave, stop!” Jessica screamed back at him, but it was useless. He’d made up his mind, and there was no stopping him now. She was lucky that Kilgrave had told the only witnesses from last night’s incident to forget it had ever happened, because otherwise she likely wouldn’t have even been allowed inside the Academy after nearly murdering someone, but Jessica was pretty sure that at the moment - in the middle of the day - any similar stunt would end pretty poorly for her. This wasn’t a problem she could solve by force. Talking to Fury or Pym was likely also going to end in failure. Fury had been more than uncooperative the last two times they’d tried to approach him about this, so she had little reason to suspect that he would take her warnings seriously at all. Pym and Odin generally tended to play by his fiddle, from what Jessica had seen, and while Madame Hydra seemed like the black sheep of the staff and as such was the most likely to actually listen, she didn’t actually have any administrative power, she was just a teacher on par with someone like Ares. Talking to them wasn’t going to work. What was plan B?

  
Jessica looked around, trying to locate Patsy and Wasp. If she explained the situation to Wasp, there was a very real chance she’d be able to convince her to talk Kilgrave into not having the surgery just yet. Janet was reasonable, she’d likely be completely behind the whole “Let’s take his mind control powers away” thing. And if there was anyone in the world who could possibly convince Kilgrave of anything, it was likely her. The only problem was that both Patsy and Janet had disappeared off to somewhere, likely so that Patsy could catch up on what Kilgrave had been doing, and in all honesty, Jessica had absolutely no time to go searching for them. At this rate, they could have been anywhere - either of their dorm rooms, the Archives, Janet’s tailor shop… Looking for them and convincing her to go along with the plan would’ve taken far too long, and they needed to stop the surgery before it actually began. No, the girl had to act drastically. She needed to do something that would most definitely put a stop to the process, at least for a short while. But what? The operating theater within the laboratory locked itself down during surgery to prevent infection, so the old Dr. House method of walking in and sneezing a few times in the OR in order to stop the procedure wasn’t going to work. But what if she could cut the power? Without lights, the surgery couldn’t possibly continue. And sure, maybe Dr. Strange could whip up some magical mumbo jumbo, but what about the electric tools or the Pym Particles? They needed power, didn’t they? Jessica knew where both the main and backup generators were located, and she could easily destroy them both before the surgery began… If no one got in her way. And chances were that people would absolutely get in her way, especially since the generators were in a pretty public spot. She needed a distraction in order to get to them. But what? What sort of distraction could she possibly make? The only time the students of Avengers Academy were distracted from their routine was when a big supervillain attacked them.

  
Jessica paused. That was it. That was her distraction, right there. If she could arrange for a villain attack, nobody was going to pay attention to what she was doing. It wasn’t like there was ever any real danger - what was one villain against dozens upon dozens of heroes? Especially a villain they’d already beaten before. It was decided - she was going to free one of the caged prisoners. Sure, it’d get her in heaps of trouble after the fact, but what did it matter? She would gladly get inside a transparent cell herself rather than face the possibility of seeing Kilgrave’s safeguards get taken down, allowing him to pretty much mind control every single student at Avengers Academy without any consequences or repercussions. He was unstable, delusional, and worst of all - she’d made him very pissed off at her. Who was to say he wasn’t going to raze her school to the ground simply out of spite? Who was to say he wasn’t going to put Janet through the same torture she’d experience at his hands? A minor crisis was absolutely worth it if it could prevent a catastrophe. Determined, Jessica ran down the tiled path, her destination being the Red Skull’s cell in the corner of the school. She figured he was her best bet at doing just enough damage to keep everyone busy without causing massive chaos. Carnage was way too dangerous to ever be released, and the girl didn’t even want to think what would happen if someone like Mephisto or Dormammu got out. As for the likes of the Kingpin, Ronan or Kaecilius, Jessica didn’t exactly trust them. They were schemers, people with plans. The Red Skull never had a plan, he was just a big bully who thought he could take over the Academy through sheer numbers and strength. He was perfect.

  
Getting to his cell really wasn’t all that challenging for the detective. The transparent prisons were left out in the open for everyone to marvel at, and Jessica in particular was known for hanging out with the Skull when she needed an impartial listener. No one even looked at her when she crouched down in front of the young man’s cell, reached underneath the metal cover concealing the cell security and peeled it open, throwing it away. The former HYDRA leader stood up, approaching the glass.  
“What are you doing?” He asked.  
“There’s an emergency, and I need a distraction. Think you can handle that?” She asked him.  
“It’s a pretty dumb idea to let me out…” The Skull reminded her.  
“I know. But if I don’t someone a whole lot worse than you is going to put the entire Academy at risk. I can’t allow that.”  
“Okay, so what do you need from me?”  
“Escape. Get the hell out of here. Cause as many problems for them as you can. Just make sure they know it,” Jessica spoke as she held the buttons down, disengaging the cell’s security and causing the glass dome to gently lift open, like it was on hinges. The Skull stepped down on the grass, feeling the cold, winter air against his skin for the very first time in almost a year. It felt… Beautiful. He’d forgotten just how much he’d missed the most basic things.

  
“Thank you for this… I owe you my life, I truly do…” The Red Skull looked at Jessica.  
“Okay, enough of this! Go before people notice--”  
He raised his left hand up in the air, leaving it at eye level, as if to say ‘Wait, I’m not finished’.  
“I want to assure you that I’ll hold out my end of the bargain… And that this isn’t personal.”  
The gunshot echoed in the girl’s ears long before she could feel any sort of pain. In fact, if it wasn’t for the sudden awkwardly wet sensation in her stomach, she wouldn’t have even realized she’d been shot until seconds later. Falling down on her knees, Jessica reached for her abdomen, her shaking hands soaked in blood. That wasn’t how it was supposed to go… But then again, how could she have known the Skull still had bullets left in his gun after months of shooting at the glass? Hell, who in the world even let him keep his gun in prison, anyway?! That had to have been Tony… He was the type to overlook something like that. The girl shook her head, trying to focus and keep her thoughts from trailing off, but it was useless. The blood loss, the exhaustion and the pain all took their toll as she fell down on the grass, a puddle of blood forming around her while she watched the Red Skull reach into his mouth and pull out a tooth. He extended what appeared to be a tiny antenna from it before bringing it up to his lips.

  
“Avengers Arena has been compromised, and I have been freed. Commence the invasion. Hail HYDRA!” He spoke firmly before throwing the remote transmitter away. Mere moments later, several large, green airships materialized in the sky, with dozens upon dozens of HYDRA soldiers parachuting down into the Academy grounds. Jessica shuddered. Back at the diner, HYDRA Bob had warned Widow about the remnants of HYDRA being a whole lot closer than anyone at the Academy suspected… But the girl never thought he’d meant that literally. How come Tony or T’challa or any of the other geniuses never detected them?! Jessica shuddered, feeling a whole lot colder than she had just a moment prior. This was bad… This was really, really bad. On the bright side, at least there was no way Kilgrave’s surgery could happen in these conditions… But on the less bright side, her mistake just might have put her school in serious danger anyway. Still, it didn’t matter to her. Why would it? She was bleeding out. Just a few moments later, she was going to be dead. And, for whatever reason, despite the fact that every single thing that could’ve gone wrong had gone wrong, she felt oddly calm about this fact. Maybe it was because this would be her first real rest in what felt like forever.

## 


	13. Twenty Minutes Later

“Jessica! Jessica!!!” A familiar voice called for her. The girl forced herself to open her eyes, her vision barely focusing. Was she dead? Judging by the pain in her stomach and the chaos surrounding her, probably not. After a few moments, Jessica’s eyes finally locked onto Patsy, who was standing by her side and holding her hand tightly, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“Huh…” Jess asked, trying to recall exactly what had happened to get her in this position. She kind of felt like she’d just been suddenly awakened from a deep slumber, needing a few moments to shake off the dream world and come to terms with her new reality. The girl tried to stand up, only to feel the dull pain in her stomach sharpen tenfold, causing her to groan and lie back down.  
“Don’t try to move,” another voice spoke to her. Jessica turned her head to the side to see Black Widow tying off bandages around the girl’s stomach, her hands covered in blood. “Good news is that your muscles managed to slow the bullet down, so it didn’t hit anything vital… Bad news is that it’s still in there. I can’t pull it out, Stephen will have to handle it… Once this is all over.”

  
Suddenly, it all came back to Jessica. She’d released the Red Skull in order to stop Kilgrave, and the Skull had taken advantage of her and shot her before summoning his armies… She looked around. Avengers Academy was a mess. As formidable as its students were, HYDRA had superior numbers - by far. And for every three or four HYDRA agents knocked out, a single Academy student went with them. They had no robots or agents to help them this time. They were on their own, and even with greater numbers than they had during their first fight, they were being narrowly outmatched. Mordo and Mary Jane lay down by the bulletin board, beaten unconscious by the thugs. Daredevil lay by the main hall, his mask cracked and his nose bleeding. It wasn’t entirely clear whose side Crossbones was even on, or if he had any intention of fighting at all. Hell, even the Hulk and the Red Hulk, fighting side by side, were starting to get tired out from the barrage. This was bad. This was really, really bad. Jessica pushed herself up on her feet, her head spinning from the pain and blood loss.  
“Where do you think you’re going?! We need to get you out of here, now!” Patsy begged.  
“Kilgrave… I have to find Kilgrave… He can fix this,” she spoke.  
“Forget about Kilgrave! He’s probably long gone by now! Come on, Jess, please…”

  
But there was nothing anyone could tell her that was going to change her mind. This was all Jessica’s mistake, and she was the one who had to fix it, no matter the cost. She couldn’t fight. She could barely walk. And yet she somehow had to make her way through a warzone in order to get to Kilgrave. The girl took a deep breath. She was going to crawl on all fours if she had to. No matter what happened to her, or what she had to do, she was going to set things right. Stumbling forward, Jessica spotted a HYDRA soldier coming her way with her peripheral vision. It didn’t seem like the guy was armed with anything more threatening than a baton, so dealing with him was going to be easy. Keeping one hand pressed firmly against her bandages to prevent any more bleeding, she balled the other into a fist and prepared to raise it and strike her attacker down… Only to find out that she couldn’t. Her arm refused to move, like it was asleep. She panicked. Her legs felt similarly sluggish and slow, likely due to the blood loss, so escape wasn’t an option either. All she could do was weakly raise the hand she’d used to press against her bandages in a mostly futile attempt to defend herself from the attack. Except the strike never came. Right before swinging the baton, the HYDRA agent was zapped by a bolt of electricity, forcing him to drop his weapon and fall down on the ground, convulsing. Jessica recognized that weapon well - Natasha’s Widow Bite. A moment later, she felt Patsy take her arm and place it over her shoulders, helping her walk as Black Widow reloaded her weapon.

  
“Come on. Let’s go,” her best friend spoke.  
“Kilgrave… We need to find Kilgrave…”  
“I know. But I’m not letting you search for him on your own,” Patsy assured her as Natasha tased another agent. Jessica tried to focus, to look in the distance for anyone dressed in a purple suit, but her eyes were failing her, and her mind was threatening to slip back into unconsciousness. The girl had never felt so much pain in her life, both physically and mentally, but she kept on fighting. She had to. Right beside them, Spider-Woman was fighting a gigantic, armored HYDRA brute - a battle she was most likely going to lose. The brutes were only vulnerable to superpowered metahumans that could punch through their armor, so Spider-Woman’s venom blasts were doing absolutely nothing against her opponent. Jessica looked on with concern in her eyes. If she wasn’t injured, she could’ve easily taken down the giant… This was all her fault. Her friends were falling down around her because of her. In her attempt to avert disaster, she had caused it. The girl felt sick to her stomach, the pain from her wound intensifying. She reminded herself that she couldn’t falter, that there was still a way to fix this… But it was extremely hard to believe that when your world was going to hell all around you.

  
And then she spotted it. A dash of purple, right by the gates. Could that be him? Or was her blood-deprived body simply hallucinating? Jessica focused her eyes, gazing into the distance. No… It was him. It was definitely him. Kilgrave was holding Janet’s hand, practically dragging her away from the battle and towards the front gate of the Academy. There was no way someone like her would just abandon her friends in their time of need, so it was very likely that he had broken his promise to lay off the mind control. Still, that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, other than getting to him on time.  
“There…” Jessica spoke weakly, trying to point towards him, but her hand refused to obey. Luckily, Patsy and Natasha spotted him in the distance.  
“Kilgrave!” Patsy shouted, causing the young man to turn around. He narrowed his eyes, trying to recognize exactly who it was that called him. The moment he spotted Jessica, her face drained of all color and her abdomen covered in crimson liquid, the man in the purple suit gasped and rushed over to her, with Wasp quickly following him.  
“Jessica!” He shouted at her as the girl lost her balance, unable to keep herself on her feet and stumbling down to her knees, her best friend no longer able to hold her steady. “Jessica hang on! That’s an order! Hang on!”  
“Jess! Oh my God!” Janet exclaimed, her hands covering her mouth.  
“You’ve got to fix this!” Patsy yelled out. “Please!”  
“I don’t think I can! Jessica’s immune to my commands, I can’t--”  
“Not her. This!” The redhead motioned towards the Academy, now riddled with the unconscious bodies of both friends and enemies. At least, the girl hoped they were unconscious. The alternative was simply too terrible to consider.  
“I… I can’t. I can’t reach that many people,” Kilgrave lied, averting his eyes.  
“Well, do them one group at a time! Just order everyone to leave!” Patsy insisted. “Please! You’re literally the only one who can fix this!”  
“I said I can’t!” The young man shouted. “And besides, why should I? It’s not my fault this happened! This isn’t my school! I’ve got no stake in this fight!”

  
He felt someone’s fingers gently wrap around his palm.  
“It’s my school, though,” Janet spoke, looking into his eyes. “I love it. I can’t just abandon it. Everybody I care about is right here.”  
“But it doesn’t mean anything to me! This school, this entire place, this whole world… It’s never done anything for me,” Kilgrave uttered. “Why should I have to…”  
“Because you’re a hero,” Janet looked at him. “And I know you’re better than this… version of yourself that you’re showing to everyone. I’ve seen the real you. The real you, that person you’re hiding deep inside of you because you’re so scared of being unloved… I have seen him, and I know that he’s beautiful! So please… Show him to everyone else, too.”  
Kilgrave bit his lip, a single tear running down his eye. He knew she was right. If he ran away with her, if he just took her away like he took Jessica, if he simply forced her to love him, she would only end up hating him. He’d already done that mistake once before, and he was never going to forgive himself for it.  
“That version of me… The version that helps others, the version that cares… Do you think he’s someone that could ever be loved? Or am I just… Irredeemable?” He asked her. He knew what Jessica’s answer to this question was going to be, but, for whatever reason, he was hoping that Janet would have a different response. And she did. Stepping up on her toes, the girl wrapped her arms behind his head and gently pressed her lips against his, holding them there for what felt like hours before finally letting him go and stepping back, her face flushing. Kilgrave wasn’t faring much better, staring wide-eyed at the girl, his mouth agape. That had been a first kiss for both of them.  
“Go save the world!” She exclaimed enthusiastically.

  
Kilgrave smirked. He didn’t need to be told twice. Adjusting his beloved purple suit, the young man stepped beside Patsy and the unconscious Jessica, moving slowly, yet confidently towards the quad and mostly ignoring the chaos that happened around him. Just as he stepped on the big square of tiles near the heart of the Academy, a HYDRA brute lunged at him, ready to take him out. Kilgrave sighed.  
“Get lost,” He commanded him calmly.  
Immediately, the armored brute ceased his attack and stepped away from the man, turning around and walking off. Kilgrave stepped over the unconscious body of the Red Hulk, paying very little mind to it as he walked towards Avengers Hall, which was the highest spot at the center of the Academy that he was confident he would be able to reach. Finding the Hulk fighting another brute nearby and knocking it out, Kilgrave tapped on the shouting muscle mass’ shoulder gently, causing him to turn around and raise a fist, ready to pummel what he, in a fit of rage, perceived to be another attacker.  
“Boost me up, Jolly Green Giant,” Kilgrave ordered him.  
“HULK DO THAT,” the Hulk shouted, grabbing the man in the purple suit with both arms and gently lifting him up on top of the hall. Stepping down on the rooftop, Kilgrave walked up to the front of the building and looked around. Things definitely didn’t look good at all. A good chunk of the students had already been beaten, and sure, there was always a chance that they could turn things around, considering the fact that they’d put up a formidable defense and had knocked out quite a lot of the goons already, but things weren’t exactly looking peachy. At that moment, he was pretty much their only hope to make sure this was all resolved peacefully and without further bloodshed. After clearing his throat, Kilgrave took a deep breath.

  
“Everyone, stop fighting and listen to me!!!” He shouted as loudly as he could. Immediately, the Academy went quiet. The goons ceased their attack practically mid-punch, the students stopped defending themselves. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were locked onto Avengers Hall, obeying Kilgrave’s command and waiting to hear what else he would order them. The man winced, a sudden sharp pain piercing his forehead, like someone had stabbed him deep inside his brain and then twisted the knife. Using his commands on so many people at once had taken too much of a toll… It was happening. But it was okay.  
“Everyone who doesn’t belong here, everyone who has attacked the students of Avengers Academy, everyone wearing an… identical green uniform with a red octopus thing on it,” he ordered. “Listen closely! Leave this school! Don’t ever, EVER come back! Don’t even think about hurting anyone ever again! Forget everything about today and go on with your silly little lives! And most importantly--”  
Kilgrave didn’t finish that thought. The pain in his brain paralyzed him from doing that. Suddenly, his pupils dilated, his left eye filling up with blood. Slowly, almost without a sound, Kilgrave dropped to his knees and fell back down onto the roof, never to see the wonderful sight of dozens of terrified, confused HYDRA agents scrambling and running for their lives.

## 


	14. Epilogue

Jessica awakened with a splitting headache, and an even worse pain in her stomach. Well, at the very least, that meant she was still alive, somehow… Unless the Afterlife sucked horribly. She groaned loudly and opened her eyes, desperately trying to recall what her last memories had been. The things she remembered were… Not that great. God… Had she really released the Red Skull from his cell? What in the world was her terrified, sleep-deprived mind thinking?! Was everyone else okay? Things were looking really bad when she passed out, but judging by the fact that she was in the Academy’s infirmary and, well, alive, pretty much confirmed that her side had won over HYDRA. But at what cost? Just what had they lost because of her mistake? How many of her fellow students ended up getting hurt because of her?

  
The girl looked around, trying to take in her surroundings. She was by herself in her own hospital room, hooked up to an EKG monitor and an IV bag hanging by her bed. She was dressed in a hospital gown which, upon being lifted, revealed bandages wrapped tightly around her abdomen, but the lack of an oxygen mask or anything of this sort led her to believe that her injuries weren’t as grave as they’d seemed at the time. She supposed that Dr. Witter wasn’t exaggerating when he told her her regenerative ability was on par with that of Captain America. Of course, it probably hadn’t hurt that Avengers Academy was home to some state of the art medical equipment and plenty of doctors with the skills to use them. Removing the bullet and then stitching her up had probably been child’s play for someone like Dr. Strange. Still, that begged the question… What exactly happened? There was only one way Jessica would be getting her answers. She looked around, her eyes wandering around the room for a little bit before finding a tiny, white button embedded in the wall by her bed. The girl reached over, pressing it and holding it for a few seconds before leaning against the frame, expecting whichever doctor or nurse they had on staff at that particular point. The one person she didn’t expect to visit her was the principal himself.

  
Jessica’s mouth gaped when she saw Fury step into her humble hospital room, his dark leather jacket almost touching the floor. She’d never realized just how long that thing was… Honestly, the girl didn’t remember ever meeting him outside of his office. Seeing him there was probably equal parts good and bad news.  
“You really worried your friends, you know,” he spoke, closing the door behind him. “Ms. Walker’s taking a nap on a chair outside, and Mr. Cage has been destroying robots at the dojo faster than Tony Stark can build them. They’re both blaming themselves for this, so I suggest you clear this misunderstanding up with them when you get the chance.”  
“I didn’t know you were so worried about my interpersonal relationships,” Jessica scoffed.  
“There’s a lot of things you don’t know, Ms. Jones,” Fury responded, taking a seat by her bedside and crossing his legs. The girl ignored him. She didn’t need a lecture. Not at that moment.  
“What happened while I was out?” She asked.  
“We were able to capture a good part of HYDRA’s forces, including the Red Skull. The Skull will be returned to his cell, and as for the rest of them, that’s classified. I don’t think HYDRA will ever be a problem again after this.”  
That was a relief, at least. But it didn’t answer her most burning question.  
“What about--”  
“Kilgrave? I’m afraid we couldn’t save him. By the time Dr. Strange and Dr. Pym got to him on the roof of Avengers Hall, an aneurysm had already burst into his brain. A decision was made to incinerate his remains to ensure that his abilities could never be replicated.”  
Jessica sighed, staring down at her legs. She thought she’d be glad to hear that Kilgrave was gone for good, but… Honestly, she just felt empty. Like there was now a hole in her heart that could never be filled again. How could she possibly feel that way for someone she hated so much?

  
“Wait…” Jessica turned to Fury. “You mean you know about Kilgrave? You believe he’s real?”  
“Of course I believe he’s real,” he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I’ve been working with him to free enhanced persons from laboratories for years now.”  
The girl’s mouth gaped.  
“Wait… You mean you’re his contact, the one that told us where we had to go? You’re Doyle?!”  
Fury nodded silently.  
“But why? Why would you do such a thing? Did you know I was being used against my will?”  
“I suspected, yes. But I had my priorities, Ms. Jones. Avengers Academy was in active development at the time, within the zone of the timefog. It had to be fully operational soon, or else we were going to be completely defenseless against the threat we face. But an Academy needs its students, and with a huge organization actively imprisoning metahumans the moment they showed up, finding students was bound to be difficult unless something was done. Kilgrave and I helped each other out.”  
“You used him. You used both of us,” she hissed.  
“I did what I had to do to build Avengers Academy. Without him, many of our students would’ve ended up in captivity. Would you have preferred that?”  
Jessica kept quiet.  
“If you knew about him all along, why did you pretend like I was insane? You could’ve helped me catch him, and none of this would’ve happened!”  
“Who’s to say I didn’t want it to happen?”

  
The girl stared at him. Surely he couldn’t be serious… Could he?  
“What?”  
“We already knew that HYDRA had troops very close to us, ones that we couldn’t detect. And according to Natasha’s intel, they were waiting for us to get distracted with another threat before attacking us. Imagine if the next time something bad happened here we had to deal with that and also with the HYDRA army. We would never survive. The initial plan was for Natasha to infiltrate HYDRA and learn exactly where their troops were located, but that idea fell through when you had a very public panic attack.”  
Jessica narrowed her eyes. She didn’t like that this was being pinned on her.  
“So I had to come up with a different plan,” Fury continued. “We would bait HYDRA into attacking us, and then dispose of them swiftly. I figured that if their leader somehow broke free, he’d find a way to summon them at the first chance of distress within the school. Kilgrave was that distress.”  
“But why couldn’t you just fake it? Have the Hulk fake a rampage and then tell Natasha to break the Red Skull out to have him help with that? Then we’d also be better prepared to deal with what’s to come.”  
“Because Kilgrave was also my trump card. I knew that if things went south, Kilgrave could be persuaded to help out. With his power, the conflict could be resolved rather quickly.”  
“Or he could have turned on Avengers Academy and ruled it alongside HYDRA…” Jessica sighed.  
“That didn’t fit his MO. Kilgrave was essentially a lost child. As soon as he found someone who accepted him, he could be very easily manipulated.”

  
Jessica couldn’t believe her ears. She simply stared at Fury, not entirely sure what she was even supposed to say.  
“So you’re saying this whole thing has been a giant game of chess for you? Because you couldn’t come up with another way to draw out the HYDRA reserves? You never thought for a second that this plan could fail and destroy everything you’ve built?!”  
“Of course I thought about it. But the chance of failure was insignificant compared to the chance for success. You’d be surprised just how little this plan needed in order to succeed. And it did, quite spectacularly. Not only did we get rid of HYDRA, but as an added bonus we also raided a Facility laboratory, rescuing all six of its prisoners, and not to mention eliminated someone who potentially posed a danger to the Academy.”  
“You--” Jessica raised her voice. She didn’t want Fury to talk like that about Kilgrave, but… She knew he was right. The girl knew herself that if Kilgrave ever actively tried to rule the Academy, nothing and no one could have stopped him. His death was tragic, but… In the long run, maybe it was for the best.  
“I know that things are difficult to process right now,” Fury spoke, reaching into his pocket. “But the reason why I’m telling you this is because I don’t want you to blame yourself for anything that happened. None of it was your fault, nobody was hurt, and nobody blames you. You played your part flawlessly, and proved yourself as a capable detective. So, if you don’t mind… I’d like to return this to you. You’re an asset to Avengers Academy, Jessica Jones.”

  
In his hand, the man in the dark coat was holding Jessica’s Avengers Academy ID card - the same one she’d thrown in his face when he accused her of being schizophrenic. She could return to Avengers Academy, go back to her dorm room, take that long shower and longer nap that she’d needed for so long and just forget about this horrible experience. But the question was… Did she want to? This school was ruled by a madman who paid little mind to the lives and well-being of his students. It seemed to get attacked every few days, and honestly, who knew how many of these had been orchestrated by Nick Fury himself? At this point, the old, broken-down ‘Alias Investigations’ office seemed a whole lot more inviting than the nicest dorm room.  
“You know where you can stick this card, Principal Fury,” Jessica responded coldly.  
The one-eyed man nodded.  
“That’s fair enough. Feel free to stay here and recover for as long as you need. You can clear out your dorm room when you’re ready.”  
“I’ll have it done by the end of the day,” she promised. “Wouldn’t want to keep the space occupied for the next recruits that will inevitably join when a random bad guy just so happens to hit Avengers Academy, of all places.”  
Fury kept quiet for a moment.  
“Choose your battles carefully, Ms. Jones. You don’t want me as your enemy.”  
“You just cremated my last enemy, so I’d advise you to listen to your own words.”  
Principal Fury smirked, casually walking over to the door.  
“Don’t ever set foot inside my Academy again, Ms. Jones,” he warned her before leaving the room.

  
Jessica kept true to her word. She left the infirmary within an hour of her awakening, changed into whatever clothes Patsy had brought her, and then walked into her dorm room and began packing. She didn’t really have that many possessions, so pretty much all of it fit nicely within a single suitcase. It was kind of sad to think that, within the few months she spent in the Academy, she never quite got comfortable enough to truly make herself at home in her new dorm. A part of her kept nagging in the back of her mind that this wasn’t going to last… And, sure enough, it hadn’t. Still, she had collected enough money from her scholarship. She could easily renovate Alias Investigations and keep it open for a couple of months, and now that she was older and wiser, clients were sure to start coming. Who knew, she could even attempt to qualify for a private investigator certificate, which was going to bring even more clientele to her little office. Despite how completely horrible this day had been, she was going to be fine.

  
As she walked down the halls of the dorm one last time, Jessica’s eye was caught by a rather particular door. Unlike the others, most of which were dull, boring and had nothing but a dorm number on them to distinguish them from literally any other door in there, this one was bright, colorful, covered frame to frame in stickers and drawings. If Jessica didn’t know any better, she would’ve guessed that it led to a little kid’s room… And, in a way, it did. The girl sighed. She knew she probably had to say something to Wasp before she left, but… What could that even be? “I’m sorry that my brother kidnapped you and forced you to hurt people against your will, but at least now he’s dead, so he’s not going to hurt either of us anymore?” That probably wasn’t going to help too much. Still, she had to say something… This whole thing had been her fault, and Wasp was the one who’d taken the blunt end of it. At the very least, she deserved some sort of apology. With a sigh, the girl raised her hand and knocked on the door.  
“Janet? It’s Jessica,” she spoke. No response. Jessica knocked again. “Janet?”  
There didn’t seem to be anyone in the room. Wasp didn’t seem the type of person who’d outright ignore someone at the door… But even if she’d decided to not talk to Jessica, the dark-haired girl knew she deserved it. Still, maybe she simply wasn’t there. And if she wasn’t in her room, but was still in the dorm, there was only one other place where she could’ve gone. Dragging her suitcase, Jessica headed up the stairs and towards the rooftop, where a single chair stood all by itself, overlooking the entire Academy. Once up there, the detective noticed two things. One, it had started snowing again, and two, the chair was occupied by a girl in a long, warm coat warming her hands with a cup of hot cocoa. Janet didn’t even seem to notice Jessica, her gaze fixated on the horizon.

  
“Hey,” the dark-haired girl waved. Wasp turned to her.  
“Oh, hey,” she smiled faintly.  
“How are you doing?” Jessica asked, placing her suitcase on the ground by the chair and sitting down on top of it.  
“Ah, you know… I’ll bounce right back. I always do!” Janet forced a smile. “I mean… Bad things happen so that we can appreciate the good things that happen later, right?”  
“Right,” Jessica spoke. Only someone like Wasp could really think something like that.  
“And besides…” The girl continued, her tone a little quieter. “This isn’t the first time someone I’ve cared about has… I’ve been through this before, and I know that, for a while, it feels like the world has ended… But then things just suddenly start moving again, and before you know it, you start moving with them whether you want to or not.”  
Jessica turned to her.  
“You cared about Kilgrave?”  
Janet sighed quietly, her hands gripping the steaming cup.  
“I think there was something inside him… Something amazing. The person I was with, the person that desperately tried to break to the surface, was not the same person who threatened our friends and took me against my will. I don’t know… Maybe it was just Stockholm Syndrome? But I could’ve sworn I saw something in him… A good person that genuinely cared about others, maybe a whole lot more than some of the students here do! I mean, when’s the last time you’ve seen Loki or Enchantress go out of their way to help someone?”  
“Janet, he kidnapped you and forced you to hurt people against your will!” Jessica interjected. “I saw what happened in the lab!”  
“He didn’t force me to do a thing I didn’t want to do,” she spoke. “I went with him to that place on my own. I fought on my own. I followed him on my own. I could’ve shrunk down, knocked him out and escaped at any point after we left his house, but I didn’t.”  
“Why not? What could you possibly get from helping someone like him?”  
“Because I’ve been in this school for superheroes for ten months, and do you know how many people I’d saved up until he showed up? None! I’m a hero, Jessica. Being a seamstress, being on social media… Those things mean a lot to me, but they’re secondary. First and foremost, I’m a hero. This is me. This is who I am. When someone asks who I am, I’m not Janet Van Dyne the fashion designer, I’m the Wasp. And yet I, the great hero, hadn’t saved a single person until Kilgrave took me away. And once that happened, I saved six within 12 hours. And do you want to know something? I’ve hurt a whole lot more people here in Avengers Academy than I ever did with Kilgrave. The numbers aren’t even close! So get off your high horse and stop acting like I’m some sort of helpless victim here, Jessica!”

  
Jessica stood quietly, her mouth gaping. She had… Absolutely no idea that Janet felt that way. If Kilgrave hadn’t lied, and you really couldn’t force people to love you, then did that mean there really was something good in him after all? Something she’d failed to see? It mattered little now.  
“I’m sorry,” Jessica muttered. “I didn’t mean to…”  
“I know,” Janet spoke quietly. “I’m sorry too. I’ve got a lot on my mind right now. I think I just need to be alone for a little bit.”  
Jessica nodded, standing up and taking her suitcase by the handle once again. Wasp turned to her.  
“You’re really moving out, huh?”  
“Yeah. I’m moving back to my old place,” she confirmed. “Ask Luke or Patsy for the address and feel free to come over, if you ever want to. I, um…”  
“Sure,” Wasp smiled.  
Jessica nodded. That was her cue to leave.  
“Take care of yourself, Janet.”  
“You too, Jess.”

  
And with that, Jessica Jones walked out.


End file.
